The implementation of diversified engineering and mining group Metso’s integrated service and product offering has resulted in a significant efficiency boost for the minerals transportation process at mining company Doña Inés de Collahuasi’s mines in Chile.

Doña Inés de Collahuasi produces copper concentrate, cathodes and molybdenum concentrate through openpit operations that currently focus on the Rosario and Ujina deposits and, to a lesser extent, the Huinquintipa deposit, all located at 4 400 m above sea level on the Andean Plateau, in the Pica municipal district of northern Chile’s Tarapacá region.

As of December 2014, Collahuasi was the world’s second-largest copper operation and the third-largest copper deposit in terms of mineral resources at 9.9-million tons.

The Metso solution was delivered about a year ago and includes gathering and analysing field data from the chutes, a new liner design, the manufacture and assembly of three discharge chutes for the mine, as well as performance follow-up and further optimisation to ensure the continuous improvement of the process.

The company’s close cooperation with Metso has already resulted in important changes in the design of the chute liners to improve the maintenance conditions by streamlining the changeover of antiwear plates.

The original design had a time between faults of about 20 days; this interval is four times longer than it was prior to the implementation of the solution.

Metso believes that this can be further optimised to ensure even less downtime at the company’s mines.

“As a company, we look for suppliers who provide an integrated service that includes engineering, manufacturing and assembly. Metso knew how to respond to our deadlines and objectives. In minerals transportation, we have already seen the time between faults rising from 20 to 80 days, and we know that the number can be optimised even further,” states Doña Inés de Collahuasi asset management and reliability manager Manuel Vera.

Metso wear products and conveyor belt manager Mauricio Carrasco says that providing integrated solutions is a key demand of the mining industry.

“Our customers are familiar with Metso’s knowledge and solutions in these types of processes. They know that our service experts have both the field experience and the factory certifications. This saves them time on having to coordinate with many different contractors working on the same project,” he states.

The liners covered in Poly-Cer are designed to be resistant to strong abrasion even with a high material tonnage and at high speeds. Compared with the classic liner design, Poly-Cer is designed to increase liner wear life owing to greater resistance, with an estimated operation of more than 150 days from change-out.

Carrasco says that this lining is usually up to ten times more wear resistant than its steel counterpart and combines the best properties of ceramic and rubber to offer high wear resistance and effectively absorb impacts.