Weir Minerals Africa is currently delivering a pump order for a greenfield mineral sands plant in West Africa that includes the supply of two of the largest mill discharge pumps in the company’s range —its 750 mm MCR pumps, each weighing in at 45 tons. The two pumps were sourced from its operation in Chile and shipped to one of its South African sites, where a trial assembly was successfully conducted. Owing to their size, the two Warman MCR pumps will be shipped via Port Elizabeth to Dakar.
The pump order, comprising more than 60 units, follows in the wake of two earlier orders for the same project that included rubber dredging hoses and rubber linings for chutes and tanks. The order for pumps includes Warman AH units and the Warman L Series medium duty water and transfer pumps, incorporating the same design points as the AH pump, but which are fitted with higher efficiency impellers, have also been specified for this mineral sands project.
The order was placed with Weir Minerals Africa by an Australian-based project house in April 2012 and is being delivered in consignments in time for plant commissioning in the third quarter of 2013. A team of centralised Weir Minerals Africa service technicians, as well as technicians operating out of the company’s Ghana office, will provide commissioning support, pump maintenance training for the mine’s plant personnel and after sales back-up.
Rui Gomes, Product Manager: Slurry Pumps at Weir Minerals Africa says “Many of the pumps in this order are being supplied with mechanical seals, which is quite uncommon in the African slurry market, although well accepted in the rest of the world. Mechanical seal designs have improved and are more specifically geared for the slurry market, which work well for our sealing arrangement requirements. The fact that mechanical seals have been specified as part of an order for an African application is a good indication that this trend will soon also be reflected on this continent.”
“West Africa provides many growth opportunities and this order has been a great opportunity to manufacture liners for some of these pumps in-house at our newly built polyurethane plant in Alrode. Apart from the cost efficiency factor, this has also greatly improved our lead times. Some time ago we identified a definite role for polyurethane parts in our industry and mineral sands is certainly one of the sectors that will benefit,” concludes Gomes.
