AWARD: 2018 CEEC Medal win to Nippon Eirich and Karara mine circuit boost

AUSTRALIA – An outstanding collaboration between Karara Mining and Nippon Eirich to implement grinding circuit process improvements at Karara Mine has been awarded the 2018 CEEC Medal. The medal was awarded by the Coalition for Eco-Efficient Comminution. [caption id="attachment_1003723716" align="alignleft" width="277"] The CEEC Medal.[/caption] The 2018 CEEC Medal win goes to a team that shared their work at the 2017 MetPlant Conference in Australia: ‘Fine grinding circuit process improvement at the Karara mine concentrator’, written by Sam Palaniandy, Matthew Spagnolo, Rinto Napitupulu Halomoan, Huiwen Zhou and Hidemasa Ishikawa. The winners documented a collaboration between Karara Mining and METS company Nippon Eirich, sharing a well planned and well written operational improvement. Site staff at Karara mine, located in the mid-west region of Western Australia, faced the challenge of needing to exceed plant throughput and tackle increases in ore hardness. The authors documented how they converted the Tower Mills to bottom feed for improved grinding efficiency, allowing increased throughput at high ore hardness. Although no CEEC Medal was awarded in the Technical Research category, the overall standard of global entries was high. The broad range of research topics nominated included advanced simulation and modelling techniques, novel approaches to microwave pre-treatment of plant feed, and use of different types and shapes of grinding media. In addition to awarding the CEEC Medal for Operations, the committee bestowed high commendations on the following exceptional publications:

• ‘Introducing variable electricity cost into the comminution energy curves’, by Grant R Ballantyne.
• ‘Ball mill classification system optimization through functional performance modelling’, by Robert McIvor, Kyle Bartholomew, Omar Arafat and Jim Finch.
• ‘Cave fragmentation in a cave-to-mill context at the New Afton mine Part II: Implications to mill performance, mining technology’, by Stefan Nadolski, Christopher O‘Hara, Bern Klein, Davide Elmo and Craig J. R. Hart.
• ‘Shifting the comminution workload from secondary to regrind stage: An energy efficient approach’, by Samayamutthirian Palaniandy, Hidemasa Ishikawa and Mohsen Yahyaei.

To read more about the this year’s successful entries visit www.CEECtheFuture.org/news.