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Refractory lining to be completed in June next year

13th September 2013

By: Zandile Mavuso

Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor: Features

  

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Mineral processing and mining services company Dickinson Group has been contracted to complete the refractory lining of all the smelting units at Toronto-listed company First Quantum Minerals’ (FQM’s) Kansanshi mine, in Zambia.

Dickinson Group will start working on the plant in April 2014 and will complete the contract works in the three-month period leading up to the time it expects to hand over the complete plant on June 30, 2014.

“Kansanshi is the eighth-largest copper mine in the world and the company aims to achieve 900 000 t total copper production by 2016. The new smelter, which is being built in Zambia, will be shared by Kansanshi and Sentinel and will process 300 000 t of treated copper concentrate a year. A total supply of 67%, needed to complete the project, will come from Sentinel, with Kansanshi providing the remaining 33%. The Zambia Environmental Management Agency approved FQM’s planned multimillion- dollar copper project in the country,” says Dickinson Group marketing manager Elze Scheepers.

The company mentions that the smelter at Kansanshi, which is about 20 km south of the country’s border with the Democratic Republic of Congo, has a poten- tial life span of 20 years and forms part of FQM’s plans to triple its copper production capacity, making it one of the top ten producers of the metal in the world.


“Dickinson Group’s scope of work entails the installation of more than 2 000 t of refractories on a large number of smelting furnaces, which will include an Isasmelt furnace, with a waste heat boiler, a matte settling furnace, two anode refining furnaces, incinerators and four Peirce Smith converters.


“Dickinson Group will be employing 102 skilled workers for the duration of the project. Also, given the geographical remoteness of the plant, we have taken great care in ensuring that adequate resources will be available for our workers to carry out the task at hand,” she highlights.


Since it started operating in 2005, the Kansanshi mine has undergone several expansions. From an initial production capacity of 110 000 t of copper, it is currently capable of producing 340 000 t/y of copper and more than 120 000 oz/y of gold. The multistage expansion project aims to increase copper output capacity to about 400 000 t by 2015.

Scheepers notes that mining at Kansanshi is carried out in two openpits using conventional openpit methods and employing hydraulic excavators and haul trucks. Different ore treatment methods allow for variation in ore type, either through an oxide circuit or a traditional ore mixed-float circuit, to beneficiate flotation concentrate to final cathode through a HPL circuit. Sulphide ore is treated through crushing, milling and flotation to produce copper in concentrate.

“The gold recovery through gravity at the mine was expanded by adding new gravity concentrators in 2010, thus providing two concentrators on each milling train and increasing gold recovery from all ore types. Gemini tables were installed to treat the gravity concentrates and produce a high-grade concentrate for direct smelting into gold bullion,” she adds.

The group is familiar with the Zambian mining environment, as it was awarded a contract by Konkola Copper Mines to complete the refractory installation works at its new Nchanga smelter in 2008. The group has executed numerous furnace rebuilds and initial construction of smelting plants on the Zambian Copperbelt, at copper mine Mopani Smelter, copper and cobalt refinery company Chambishi Metals and Konkola Copper Mines.

Dickinson Group will provide project and site management and supervision. It will also mobilise the skilled labour from South Africa, whereas the unskilled labour required will be provided by FQM’s Kansanshi smelter from the local Zambian labour force. Also, refactory materials services company RHI has been awarded the contract for the bulk of the supply of the refractory materials, whereas Dickinson Group will install the free-issued refractory materials.
The group specialises in the installation, repair and maintenance of the refractory linings across the complete range of smelter and mineral processing refractory-consuming industries, including the cement and lime, ceramic, glass, ferrous and nonferrous, chemicals and petro- chemicals, pulp and paper, as well as the power generation industries.

The group also has extensive experience in the installation of all types of refractory materials – this includes bricklaying, pneumatic gunning, ramming, pump- ing, vibrocasting and the place- ment of castables – and ceramic fibre products across the complete range of furnace designs.

Edited by Megan van Wyngaardt
Creamer Media Contributing Editor Online

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