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Operational improvements can improve grade, recovery or create maintenance or other time efficiencies. SGS Minerals Services can work with you to:
- Thoroughly evaluate your on-site operations without bias or special interest so you can access the best available technology
- Give you innovative workable alternatives to bottlenecks in your plant
- Provide short-term metallurgical commissioning assistance during start-up
- Assist with training or provide resources to assist with transitions.
From periodic technical auditing to troubleshooting to complete on-site daily metallurgical management, SGS Minerals Services can support on-site operations. Whether it’s initiating a new project, re-starting an old mill or maximizing your performance from an existing mill, we are able to provide world-class technical support to ensure constant optimal mill throughput and metallurgy. SGS Minerals Services can support your operation in a way that best suits your needs and budget.
Audits & Optimization
SGS routinely provides audit and optimization programs for existing grinding circuits to ensure maximum efficiency. Working directly with your plant staff to understand the practical aspects of your operation, we will review of your mine plan and historical data analysis and perform on-site testing and evaluation. The scope of each project is different and tailored to the owner’s request. Some of the many in-plant testing projects SGS has performed include:
- Start-up of the Caribou Pb-Zn concentrator
- 3-month optimization program at the Impala PGM beneficiation plant
- Full plant audit of the KGHM copper beneficiation plant
- Flotation sampling campaign at the Tilden iron ore concentrator.
SGS can support:
- Materials Handling and Product Testing
Treatment of many iron ores is straightforward - crush and screen. Sometimes this is extended to include scrubbing, grinding and pelletising. Quality control is the main concern in most plants, and SGS can assist with sampling, size analyses, chemical analysis, and other standard tests. When slurry or material flow is critical, thickening and filtration studies and rheology assessments can be performed, on in-plant streams or samples shipped to our facilities.
- Audit to Improve Metallurgical Performance
In more complex plants, a metallurgical audit can often indicate where improvements in plant performance can be achieved. For instance, a mineralogical study of various plant streams using techniques such as QEMSCAN® or image analysis can highlight liberation problems, or areas with poor recovery. Improvement studies can then be focused in these areas. If necessary, samples can be taken and metallurgical studies performed on-site and at our facilities. We use the equipment and reagents in the plant, or assess alternative reagents or techniques. If necessary, we can make improvements in an on-site pilot plant using a small feed stream taken from the critical part of the operation.
- Audit to Increase Plant Throughput
Increasing plant throughput often improves profitability. Audits of the grinding and flotation areas can help address this. Throughputs in the flotation area can be improved by reducing recycle loads, flotation rates or magnetic or gravity separation performance. This may be achieved by changing reagent regimes, improvement of feed particle size, and better control of pulp densities.
- Grinding Studies
Grinding is usually one of the more prominent bottlenecks in plant activities. SGS Minerals Services can perform detailed grinding studies, using both power-based methods, and simulation-based methods to help yield increased throughput, and/or improve fineness-of-grind.
- Pelletizing
A one-meter disc pellitizer is available for pellitizing testwork of fine iron ore products.
Metallurgical Accounting
Metallurgical accounting is an ongoing process that involves sampling, analyzing and accounting for the metal that enters and exits your metallurgical plant. Just as monetary accounting provides the necessary framework for financial decisions, met accounting provides the diagnostic information required for effective metallurgical decisions, and informed marketing, sales and corporate planning. Properly designed met accounting procedures are a powerful tool that can provide insight and remedial measures for:
- Production variability
- Unexplained material losses and gains
- Process inefficiencies
- Production forecasting problems.
Our staffs are independent process experts with extensive testing and plant expertise. They have the ability to establish and optimize your met accounting process to ensure your metal throughputs meet corporate requirements.
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