On the current Future Minerals Discussion board in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, IM Editorial Director Paul Moore caught up with TAKRAF Group CEO Thomas Jabs on the potential progress in that nation plus TAKRAF Group’s worth proposition in right this moment’s mining market.
Mining, supplies dealing with and minerals processing programs main TAKRAF Group has had some high-profile contract wins previously 18 months together with with SNIM, Rio Tinto and Collahuasi. For SNIM in Mauritania, the contract covers the provision of a whole iron ore crushing, screening, and materials dealing with system, together with a practice loading station for the F’Derick mission. This adopted the signing of a contract with Rio Tinto in November 2023 for an built-in in-pit crushing and conveying (IPCC) service for the Simandou iron ore advanced in Guinea. Most not too long ago, it has secured a significant contract to design and provide a conveying system for Compañía Minera Doña Inés de Collahuasi SCM’s Ujina progress mission, in Chile. The contract will see TAKRAF engineer and provide the conveying system (CV-8001, CV-8002 and CV-8003) for the mission, which has a key goal to extend the capability of the concentrator plant.
IM Editorial Director Paul Moore with TAKRAF CEO Thomas Jabs on the Future Minerals Discussion board
Q The place does TAKRAF see the potential for supplies dealing with enterprise progress in Saudi Arabia?
Clearly the phosphate business in Saudi Arabia, and to some extent gold and bauxite, are primarily the place you have already got tangible supplies dealing with and conveying, in addition to processing initiatives. Ma’aden is an current buyer of ours in phosphate for instance – and within the area we’ve got prospects in adjoining international locations together with the UAE and Oman. However the Future Minerals Discussion board is indicative of the large potential sooner or later and the need for quick paced improvement of enormous mining operations, the place conveying and IPCC options could have their place – although it would nonetheless take time for the exploration outcomes to filter by way of into superior initiatives.
Q Your providing covers pit to port, are there alternatives throughout this worth chain within the nation? How are you approaching the Saudi market?
The 2 manufacturers that we’ve got beneath TAKRAF Group – particularly TAKRAF and DELKOR – do supply a variety of options, and each are already current in Saudi Arabia within the phosphate sector. We will supply on the DELKOR facet filtration, flotation, thickening and different mineral processing choices, and from TAKRAF we’ve got comfortable rock mining, corresponding to with bucket-wheel excavators, plus HPGRs and sizers, feeding, conveying (ore and waste), waste dealing with together with spreaders, leach pad or stockpile stacking/reclaiming and mineral port storage and ship loading. All of those could have relevance as Saudi’s mining business grows. Nonetheless, there may be additionally a significant potential marketplace for tools to deal with minerals like iron ore being imported into Saudi Arabia for consumption within the metal and different industries – together with the potential future use of DRI for electrical arc furnace vegetation. Vale has introduced it’s constructing a inexperienced metal mega-hub in Ras Al Khair, for instance. As well as, we’re a number one provider of stockyard and different tools to the cement sector. Right now we’re constructing relationships with current and potential prospects and getting used to doing enterprise in Saudi Arabia in order that we’re in a great place when some bigger mining investments will come. We additionally see that a variety of vitality intensive steps in smelting in addition to comminution and processing will probably relocate to Saudi from different international locations because of entry to low cost vitality, a lot of which is coming from pure gasoline fired vegetation, however the nation can also be pushing in the direction of 50% renewable vitality by 2030, with photo voltaic being fairly an apparent possibility.
TAKRAF not too long ago secured a significant contract to design and provide a conveying system for Collahuasi SCM’s Ujina progress mission in Chile
Q Taking a look at massive scale mine conveying, another main gamers have or shall be exiting the market – whereas TAKRAF has introduced some high-profile contracts in current months. What has contributed to your capacity to lock in these main initiatives?
I believe there are a number of causes – relating to supplies dealing with we’re a full line provider from major crushing proper by way of to the export terminal and ship loader. Simandou for instance consists of major and secondary IPCC programs and stacking & reclaiming on the practice load out space plus the wagon loading programs. I additionally assume it’s about buyer confidence in us. By that I imply the best way we deal with and handle initiatives from the outset, together with on the research part, works in our favour because it creates confidence early on that we’re the best companion. That features us having the ability to present recommendation on a spread of facets – corresponding to the place is one of the best place for an in-pit crusher, whether or not redundancy in conveyors is required, plus collection of the best powertrain and the best conveyor pace. We conduct all our primary engineering in-house and we don’t outsource any of that, plus we retain a mine planning division to assist map out how a cloth dealing with system will evolve because the mine develops – that is all primarily based in our devoted TAKRAF Mining Know-how Heart (TMTC). On the crushers we additionally deliver choices – we will provide our personal sizers, from commonplace class to our TAKRAF X-TREME Class machines and HPGRs – and we’re supplying the previous for Simandou. For major gyratories and secondary cones we will deliver a companion in – which is what we did for the SNIM F’Derick mission. Generally there’ll at all times be a less expensive possibility, but it surely’s a query of whom you belief for corresponding to main and long-term funding. By way of suppliers, should you look again on the previous 20 years or so, three or 4 major established gamers accounted for almost all of the supplies dealing with market, with the alternatives typically coming right down to regional strengths in presence and fabrication capabilities and in some circumstances EPCM preferences. Right now there have been main exits from the market by main gamers as you say – and TAKRAF because of this now has an vital place of being a significant and well-established supplies dealing with system provider to the mining business, by which we stay out there and dedicated to that market too. Sure, competitors from new entrants in addition to Chinese language suppliers is rising – so we are going to proceed to deliver our worth proposition, from early-stage design – and having the ability to give choices and the professionals and cons of every – proper by way of to commissioning and assist when in use. When you ship a system, you want to be sure it performs as deliberate, which can embrace changes and tweaks to get it proper.
Q Are sizers taking part in an more and more vital function and are they in a position to deal with more durable supplies?
We’ve got pushed the envelope with our sizers rather a lot – I’d say that what is feasible to crush with our designs, particularly our TAKRAF X-TREME Class Sizers is far greater than many anticipated. A part of this has been pushed by our deep understanding of damage behaviour, together with having the ability to provide our WolfRAM armour answer, which is a really sturdy tungsten carbide overlay, for dealing with more durable supplies. This tooth hardening strategy mixed with optimised tooth configurations and excessive torque drivetrains I’d say are standout options for our sizer providing in mining, to not point out a number of the intelligent upkeep options we’ve got additionally developed. And I believe that these elements have been a significant factor in our success within the Alberta oil sands, for instance.
Q How vital is greener mining and the transfer to electrification in mines, particularly in laborious rock, taking a better take a look at conveying and IPCC choices whether or not to interchange diesel truck fleets or at the least cut back their dimension?
I believe we turned a nook about two years in the past. When the mining homes now begin serious about new investments, they take a look at decreasing carbon emissions by way of bulk ore and waste transportation. IPCC for a really very long time was seen as a pleasant thought in laborious rock mining however a distinct segment possibility, with vehicles usually profitable over different choices because of flexibility. In fact there have been some exceptions, Chile being a great instance. Right now nevertheless, on the prefeasibility and feasibility levels, everyone seems to be easy methods to minimize truck routes and truck fleets, with IPCC nearly at all times a part of the investigative course of – particularly relating to strategically inserting in-pit crushers or near-pit crushers. What’s shocking to me, nevertheless, is the large funding that’s nonetheless being put into decarbonising and electrifying vehicles – when greener materials dealing with choices exist. Vans are nonetheless utilizing tyres and truck haulage nonetheless consumes water for dedusting for instance. Plus, you might be nonetheless losing vitality within the type of extra mining when constructing, sustaining and altering truck routes over time. And vehicles will at all times return empty, regardless with which vitality they run. Utilizing inexperienced vitality doesn’t imply which you can waste it. That mentioned, vehicles will be leased and contractors can be utilized whereas conveyors are at all times going to characterize a major CAPEX outlay. However I wish to see extra concentrate on the effectivity that enormous scale conveying along with trucking can deliver – one thing confirmed in Chilean copper for a lot of a long time. And the potential for downhill conveyors to truly generate energy. So, if the identical funding was put into supplies dealing with system issues as is being put into electrical vehicles, I believe the business would obtain a variety of outcomes. Sure, in lots of laborious rock mines, there’ll most of the time be areas the place you need the pliability of vehicles – however many groups concerned in mine design are nonetheless utilizing the truck and shovel mannequin as an ordinary baseline – and never factoring in conveyors for the components of the operation the place they’d be the extra environment friendly and greener possibility. This simply means it’s more durable to usher in conveyors later as a result of the mine has not been arrange for them. On the finish of the day, mining is about logistics – how do I get the fabric from A to B within the most cost-effective and best means over the lifetime of the mine utilizing the least quantity of vitality and emitting the least carbon. And the conveyor will usually be the most suitable choice, but it surely must be factored in from the outset.
Q And what of the larger concentrate on leaching in mining in addition to dry stacked filtered tailings from the standpoint of conveyor system demand?
In leach pad stacking/reclaiming and conveying together with cellular stacking bridges we’re already nicely skilled with many references. On tailings, we’re within the superior improvement part of providing the market a brand new vary of options for dry stacked tailings – and we simply signed an settlement associated to bigger automated filter presses associated to this. All the pieces downstream and a number of the upstream from that we’ve got in our portfolio anyway, we simply need to design and place the best options for this particular market. It’s a must to keep in mind although that everybody nonetheless needs to deal with waste in probably the most price efficient means – there may be nonetheless a reluctance to spend money on waste. The normal moist tailings dam stays the bottom price possibility however can also be environmentally probably the most difficult and unsafe too. Increasingly jurisdictions are implementing new rules primarily based on the World Business Normal on Tailings Administration; plus mining teams are aligning their very own strategy on that. And now extra not too long ago the World Tailings Administration Institute has been arrange. All this implies the demand for giant dry stacked tailings programs is certainly set to extend considerably and we at TAKRAF Group are ready for that and we’ve got all of the know-how in home – together with high-density thickeners and paste thickeners from our DELKOR product model, in addition to belt filters and filter presses and naturally TAKRAF tools for the fabric dealing with and disposal. We’ve got a present mission, the place we’re stacking comparatively moist tailings and for that we’ve got carried out a reside take a look at in Australia with the shopper. However each tailings mission is completely different, and the tailings themselves are distinctive to each mine and meaning they behave in a different way on conveyors for instance – plus the out there topographies and areas for disposal range for each mine. These, and others, are a number of the issues which are we investigating by way of finest follow relating to tailings mission design and implementation. Meaning additionally utilizing the best thickening and filtration mixture to attain the optimum moisture content material for the tailings transport and disposal technique chosen.
