Equipment manufacturer Metso says portable high pressure grinding roll (HPGR) milling is coming to Australia via a Western Australia gold mine installation of one of its units, which it expects to deliver energy and resource efficiency benefits.
Unfortunately that wasn’t enough for the buyer of the HPGR plant to publicly endorse it.
Metso didn’t disclose the buyer or the value of the order, but said the “plug-and-play solution is a first of its kind to be deployed in Australia”. The new mill will be integrated with a Metso portable cone crusher, screen and conveyors in the tailored portable crushing and grinding circuit for a “large gold mine”.
“The objective is to increase stockpile volumes at improved quality that de-risks mill runtime and improves reclaim rates with a portable solution that integrates into the existing crushing and grinding circuit,” Metso Asia Pacific minerals sales vice president, Kai Ronnberg, said.
“The Metso solution is fed by diverting a partial stream from the oversize of the existing HPGR closing screen, crushing it finer and stockpiling the final product.
“Benefits include reducing the circulating load, removing multiple material rehandling steps and increasing production rates during operation. This energy-efficient portable circuit is cost-efficient to install and will be operational in 12 months.”
Metso HPGR and dry grinding vice president, Bjorn Nielsen said the company was the “only OEM with an installed base of portable HPGRs”.
“Implementing portable HPGR technology in the thriving gold processing industry is a major development, enabling miners to flexibly increase their capacity with a short delivery and commissioning time.”
Other buyers of HPGR mills in Western Australia have been happy to put their name next to orders.
De Grey Mining, for example, bought a large Weir HPGR for its major new Hemi gold mine in the state’s Pilbara region. The company, now part of Northern Star Resources, said last year HPGRs could deliver energy savings of up to 40% and contribute to efforts to lower the industry’s carbon footprint.
