Materials handling
The reward for the risk With all of the challenges in place to develop and construct a modular plant, why are Mineral Resources and its competitors going to all this effort? Well, it’s for a variety of reasons, as there are a range of benefits that a modular, scalable and relocatable crushing plant can offer mine operators. First and foremost is the risk reduction such plants can offer in terms of safety. “Construction is inherently a dangerous business,” Grey says. “We have so many issues around construction, and that’s predominantly driven by high-risk activities, a really transient workforce and having lots of activities in a small space.” With modular crushing plants like the NextGen II, construction and other on-site activities are minimised. Instead, the plants are built in workshops in the form of small modules, and from there they’re brought to the site and plugged in. On-site interaction between personnel and construction machinery is therefore minimised, and the risk of accident is mitigated accordingly. From an environmental perspective, then, these kinds of modular plants result in minimal disturbance to the local area, as they don’t require much in the way of construction machinery and don’t need any in-ground systems at all. “We don’t dig a hole, we don’t go around laying pipes, we don’t go putting concrete in the ground that typically never comes out,” Grey notes. With traditional crushing plants, it has been typical practice when decommissioning a plant to simply bury its concrete foundations or leave it as is. “We take everything home,” adds Grey. “There’s nothing left in the ground, because there is nothing in the ground.” With the NextGen plants, Mineral Resources has designed the series with a huge focus on dust mitigation in particular. “We’ve got some great reports [regarding] various standards that were well within [safe margins] in respect to our dust management,” Grey claims. Similarly, due to the design of the plants and their use of carbon fibre screens, the noise generated by their operation is far less than that of traditional crushing plants, or even other modular plants.
At the same time, with regards to improving efficiency, the power used per tonne is reduced with modular plants like the NextGen II and III. This also helps from an environmental perspective – “Less power, more tonnes,” Grey notes, means “less waste”. Similarly, efficiency is also increased through making the plants maintainable. Since they’re modular, individual components can be turned off to perform maintenance procedures on while the main body keeps running. The modular and relocatable aspects of remote operations with short-life mines or pit operations
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that require infrastructure only for a short time can be invaluable. On top of this, Mineral Resources operate under a build, own and operate model, removing the need to purchase a plant that will only be required for a few years. “Our clients don’t have to spend a dollar on [the plant itself],” Grey notes. “The client doesn’t have to spend the capital, we do that – we take the risk on the plant.”
The next piece of the puzzle As to what the future can hold for modular, scalable and relocatable crushing and screening plants, Grey believes the sky’s the limit. In particular, he expects to see development into wet processing in the coming years, particularly in smaller gold operations and the like, which often struggle to get off the ground due to the capital required. Indeed, Mineral Resources is already conducting this in modular plants on its own mining sites. “They have short lives, so I think the opportunity around relocatable gold plants, or even lithium or anything like that operating today, that’s where the future will be,” says Grey. In his opinion, the future of the tier one mining operators is already changing. As he’s made clear, these companies are seeing their main sites gradually deplete their resources and are now having to reach out several kilometres from their hubs, making use of overland conveyors and other systems that are less than ideal for many operations. These operators will want to move their crushing plants directly to the source, and move the product from there. This development isn’t likely to see itself reversed – the metals and materials that have been extracted will hardly be going back into the ground – so this trend of smaller, less profitable and shorter-living mines are here to stay. And as mining operators will need to limit expenditure in order for these sites to be worth the effort, modular, scalable and relocatable crushing and screening plants are a sure-fire way of achieving that goal. ●
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The NextGen II crushing plant’s modular nature helps to keep construction costs low.
Mineral Resources
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