GiproRIVS, Saint-Petersburg, Russia:

A. V. Goryunov, Chief Project Engineer, rivsproject@rivs.ru

IVS Joint Venture, Saint-Petersburg, Russia:
A. N. Ivanov, Director of Ore Pretreatment Department
N. O. Tikhonov, Head of Ore Pretreatment and Preconcentration Sector, Candidate of Engineering Sciences

The crisis business climate recently settled on the world market of nonferrous metals calls for continuous modernization of operating mining and processing plants to reduce production cost and raise profitability of the extraction and benefi ciation industries. One of the most promising ways of reaching the objective is introduction of extremely reliable heavy-duty equipment of increased capacity. An illustration of successful accomplishment of the objective is the project on expansion of auto-/semiauto-grinding system at Erdenet Mining Corporation. The auto-/semiauto-grinding system (ASGS) was introduced into service in July 2015. Highly qualified personnel and sound implementation of engineering decisions enabled this process stage to reach the design production output and final product size in the short term. The auto-/semiauto-grinding system expansion project of Erdenet turned out to be one of the most signifi cant steps of advancement in the mining industry of East Asia of late years. The two-stage SABC grinding circuit includes additional grinding of critical size grade of milling stage I in a pebble mill. After primary crushing, ore from SMDR-2 storage is fed to wet semiauto-grinding by mill MPSI 9750×4880 (N = 8400 kW; V = 363 m³) closely looped with 2 screeners 2400×6000 and pebble mill Metso HP 400. The screen underfl ow goes to a sump and is pumped out from there to milling stage II. Milling stage II uses overflow-type ball mill MShTs 6700×9750 (N = 8400 kW; V = 330 m³) closely lopped with 7 cyclones with a diameter of 838 mm for preliminary test classing. Planning, construction and commissioning of ASGS was contributed to by many domestic and foreign companies. Joint operation of Erdenet and the leading engineering companies and equipment supplies represented by RIVS, Naipu, CITIC and others enabled short-term and successful implementation of the complex project on expansion of ore pretreatment and on bringing annual production output of the processing circuit on to 32 Mt. Facing the trend of downward market prices of nonferrous metals and the forecasted increase hardness of produced ore, it is crucially promising to continue improvement of ore pretreatment technology by means of preliminary auto-/semiauto-grinding of critical size grade and reaching of annual production output of 34 Mt.

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