Heavy mechanical equipment supplier DCD Heavy Engineering was contracted in May by global engineered solutions, mineral processing and shaft equipment provider FLSmidth to supply Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) focused copper and cobalt miner Katanga Mining, in the DRC, with a ball mill. “The project entails delivering a 7.3 m × 9.8 m ball mill to site in 4 m × 180 m segments. The ball mill is scheduled to be completed at the mine’s concentrator plant in February 2014,” DCD Heavy Engineering GM Gary Colegate tells Mining Weekly.

He adds that the ball mill will be delivered together with other associated equipment and is likely to be commissioned in the third quarter of 2014. The new equipment will be commissioned as part of an existing milling plant at the Katanga concentrator, where multiple autogenous mills and ball mills already operate. FLSmidth minerals capital sales and marketing manager Terence Osborn says the new grinding mill will boost plant reliability and enable production throughput predictability.

“The ball mill has proven to be a reliable and high-quality piece of equipment,” he says.

Katanga Mining will also implement FLSmidth’s proprietary process expert (PXP) system advanced process control mill efficiency package. This, Osborn explains, is a high-level process-control solution, which simultaneously reduces costs and improves product quality.

“The mill is running in a closed circuit with hydrocyclones and FLSmidth has developed software that holistically takes the milling plant operation into account,” he adds.

The FLSmidth QCX/AutoSampling software module provides automatic sampling and pneumatic transport of sampled material from the process areas to the production laboratory, according to FLSmidth’s website.

Moreover, Osborn states that the company’s in-depth knowledge of mill circuits places it in an ideal position to ensure that the whole system, which uses the PXP system to achieve a consistent throughput, runs in a well-balanced and efficient manner.

“Achieving consistency is particularly important, as testwork data indicates that the ore from this project will vary in hardness, which makes mill circuit control more challenging,” he points out.

He believes that the best way to ensure that the plant achieves maximum productivity is to ensure its operational stability. Osborn says that this can be achieved by running the plant as consistently as possible, as the mine will achieve a better-quality downstream product, owing to the new ball mill.

FLSmidth will provide expert supervision during installation and commissioning and is discussing the appropriate spares requirement.

Product Offering
Colegate says DCD Heavy Engineering manufactures a variety of heavy fabricated components for the mining industry, including grinding mills, coal reclaimer components, mills heads and trunnions, mill bearings, pedestals and crushers.
\The company also manufactures large dragline components for South African industrial group Barloworld, which is the South African distributor of global industrial equipment manufacturer Caterpillar.

However, he says the company is focusing predominantly on the international mining market, which accounts for about 95% of its yearly turnover, owing to the manufacturing of components that are exported worldwide, thereby ensuring DCD Heavy Engineering maintains its global footprint.

Mining Materials Handling Significance
“The manufacturing of components to stringent international specifications for materials handling systems, which are tailored to harsh mining environments, is a core part of our business focus,” notes Colegate.

Further, he notes that the company continuously focuses on improving throughput, thus ensuring clients benefit from product input cost reductions and reduced delivery lead times. Currently, typical lead times for large grinding mills are in the vicinity of 45 weeks to 52 weeks, so any reduction will directly have a financial benefit for clients.

Capital Investment in New Plant Equipment and Upgrades
“Over the last seven years, DCD Heavy Engineering has spent more than R100-million on capital equipment and machine upgrades in an effort to improve its technological offering. The increased capacity has also assisted us in manufacturing larger grinding mills while maintaining higher throughput levels,” stresses Colegate, who adds that an industrial ball mill can be as large as 12.5 m to 13 m in diameter, with a 22 MW motor powering it.

He states that increasing a mining operation’s throughput can add millions of dollars to a mine’s yearly turnover and speed up investors’ return on investment.

Colegate notes that DCD Heavy Engineering’s vertical machining capacity is 15 m in diameter with a carrying capacity of 180 t, and with the increased demand for larger mill manufacturing cap-acity, the company is reviewing design options that will upgrade one of its vertical borers to enable it to carry 250 t and maintain the swing diameter of 15 m.

He points out that this capacity upgrade will help the company maintain its competitive edge in international mining equipment manufacturing markets.

Africa Focus
Despite the company’s main focus of meeting the requirements of the international mining market, it still believes that there is a lot of opportunity in Africa.

“Our original-equipment manufacturer customers, most of them materials handling companies, include FLSmidth, Metso Minerals, ThyssenKrupp, Caterpillar, Outotec and Polysius – all of which are playing an important part in ensuring that equipment manufactured at our facilities is being used worldwide, but particularly in Africa,” Colegate concludes.