With the price of diamonds rising, a specialised 5 tph Dense Media Separation pilot sampling plant designed by SNC-Lavalin’s South African office could pave the way for the increasing reclamation of very fine diamonds from dump material.

The innovative containerised plant was ordered for deployment at a mine in Russia. It is the third order that has been placed with SNC-Lavalin’s South African office in recent times for this region.

“The new 5 tph DMS sampling plant has been designed to process the fine dump material previously generated by the operation’s autogenous grinding (AG) mill,” says Roger Rousseau, manager of the modular group at SNC-Lavalin’s South African office. “The material contains a high amount of minus 0.5 mm materials, mostly clay and other fines, and our scope was to treat material from minus 2 mm to plus 0.5 mm.

“This was handled as a fast track project because we needed to ship the containerised plant to site before the onset of winter in the northern hemisphere. However, since winter temperatures in this far eastern region of Asia drop as low as minus 60 degrees C, the recovery plant will only operate during the summer months.”

The full scope of the order involves the design, manufacture and commissioning of the 5 tph pilot plant, comprising front-end scrubbing and screening and a DMS plant to recover diamonds from alluvial and kimberlitic deposits in the required range.

The plant was designed and executed by a dedicated modular team at the Johannesburg office. This specialised team was established three years ago to meet the increasing market demand for compact plants that can be split into smaller sections and transported in containers to all parts of the world. The 5 tph DMS sampling plant was skid mounted and shipped to site in two containers.

Rousseau comments that the trend towards containerising operational plant equipment has a number of advantages, including simplified logistics and a reduction of the time spent on site, since the equipment can be cold commissioned at the SNC-Lavalin yard before being despatched.

“The modular team is made up of highly skilled professionals who are able to multi-task on any given project,” Rousseau adds. “This invariably creates a price advantage for SNC-Lavalin when tendering for smaller projects.”

SNC-Lavalin is one of the leading engineering and construction groups in the world and a major player in the ownership of infrastructure, and in the provision of operations and maintenance services. SNC-Lavalin has offices across Canada and in over 40 other countries around the world, and is currently working in some 100 countries. www.snclavalin.com

5TPH DMS PLANT PIC 01 : An illustration of the 5 tph plant.