Now, some in the bulk handling industry suggest there has been a “paradigm shift” in recent years with mining think tanks and mining operators asking simply: “Do we need trucks?”or “How much can we cover with conveyors?” So says Thomas Jabs, Global Product Line Manager, Products & Systems, for Sweden’s Sandvik Mining & Construction Materials Handling GmbH & Co KG, one of the world’s leading makers of conveyors. “With constantly increasing volumes to be transported, the big mining operators are changing their focus more onto transport and logistics questions,” says Jabs. “There has been a paradigm shift in the initial layout phase of mines.”
Approaching capacity
That shift in thinking might explain why some of the Top 5 conveyor makers had strong years in 2010 with the action spilling into a robust 1st Quarter of 2011. Two of the three FL Smidth material handling offices, including Wadgassen , near Frankfurt in Germany, which handles port related conveying matters, have had near record order intake for the year so far, reports Jeremy Holland, Business Development Manager and mechanical engineer for FL Smidth in its Meridian, Idaho office in the United States. All three handling groups are “quickly approaching our engineering capacity for the year,” adds Holland, who expects it to be a record year. These days, it’s all about higher tonnages and faster-moving conveyors. Holland says most of the projects that are being completed today have increased 50% in capacity over what was being considered just five years ago. “As the equipment the conveyors support continues to grow in capacity and size, the material handling systems must grow in accordance.” For Sandvik, Jabs says the industry is “still hauling a large project backlog from 2008-2009 and important investment and expansion projects are being step by step green lighted.” Sandvik has found the demand for conveyors to be “especially high” and Jabs says “we are constantly reinforcing this part of our business.”
Strong activity
Engineering consultants WorleyParsons, who do conveyor work around the world, have noted strong activity in the bulk handling sector on the North American west coast and in the United Kingdom, particularly in the coal industry. “There’s a significant amount of expansion work underway or being investigated,” says WorleyParsons Technical Director, Greg Andrew, based in Vancouver, BC. “Everyone appears to be rebuilding and the current (high) prices of coal are bringing more people onto the market.” At least two new coal terminals have been announced for Washington State and several new coal mining projects are being explored in the northeast of British Columbia. Recently, a Chinese consortium, including the Shougang Group, one of China’s top steelmakers, announced it was spending $1 billion to develop new coal mines in that region. This will put BC’s three coal export terminals, already operating at capacity, under further pressure to expand over the next few years. North America’s busiest coal export terminal, Westshore Terminals in Port Metro Vancouver, recently completed a three-year, $47 million equipment upgrade, which included sections of new, wider, high-speed conveyors to feed a new fourth stacker-reclaimer and an upgraded coal dumper. And Westshore is not alone in growth on the west coast, as its two major rivals, Neptune Bulk Terminals in Port Metro Vancouver and Ridley Terminals Inc., in the Port of Prince Rupert, are also amid expansion projects. Another major engineering consulting firm dealing in conveyors and conveyor systems, Ausenco Sandwell, based in Brisbane, Australia, has been busy in iron ore and coal expansion projects in Brazil, Canada, Colombia, and Australia, says Gordon Zonailo, Vice President of Technology, located in Vancouver BC. Ausenco Sandwell has been working with Teck Resources on a feasibility study on reopening the Quintette Mine in BC’s northeast. Poor prices forced the closure of the open pit mine in August, 2000, but a great deal has happened to coal prices since then. If the study results are favourable, Quintette could be back in action in 2013.
Rush of projects
“Business is pretty good and it’s getting busier and busier,” says Zonailo. “Our 2011 started off with a rush of projects going ahead, work that had been held off until design completion or the project go ahead was received.” Ausenco Sandwell gets involved from mine pit to port and is currently working on an “embryonic mining plan” in Sri Lanka in the project development stage for iron ore and coal and involving new port facilities and a power plant. Zonailo says the greenfield project, which involves a lot of conveyor work, will be two years in studies and three years in development. Like most engineering companies consulting in construction management, when it comes to conveyors, Ausenco Sandwell usually chooses individual suppliers for pulleys, idlers, conveyor drives and so on and has them assembled by a contractor under their guidance as Project Manager. Recent conveyor purchases have involved Continental in the US, Conti Tech AG and Midwest Conveyors in Wisconsin for Europe, and Metso, Sandvik, Tenova Takraf, and FAM Group worldwide.
Hot spots
Sandvik sees the hot spots as a head-to-head race between Australia and Latin America where coal and iron ore are the drivers for new projects. Canada and China are also in mining growth modes, but the biggest growth potential of all, says Jabs, lies in Africa. For FL Smidth, recent materials handling hot spots around the world have included South America, particularly Chile and Peru, plus South Africa, India and Indonesia. The contract successes list is impressive and includes:
A EUR53 million coal handling system (engineering, supply and construction) contract with the Indian National Thermal Power Corporation. Conveyors will handle up to 1,650 tonnes of coal an hour.
A USD135 million material handling contract with PT Adaro Indonesia to cut truck usage at its Tanjung District coal mine by using a new conveying system including overland and mobile stacking conveyors.
A EUR34 million material handling equipment contract with the Kuwait Cement Company for a second production line located at their cement plant at Shuaiba Port.
A USD20.4 million contract to supply the world’s largest pipe conveyor to India’s NTPC-Tamil Nadu Energy Company Ltd. as part of an external coal handling package.
A USD40 million contract with the LILIAMA Vietnam Machinery Corporation for the supply of a coal handling facility that includes about 8 kilometers of conveyors.
Clear advantages
Meanwhile, few would disagree that conveyors have clearly identifiable environmental advantages over trucks and even rail. For many port and stockyard applications, the modern conveyor system is simply the most economic way of transporting bulk solid materials. And compared to trucks that run one way empty, long haul conveyors look decidedly greener with a much better carbon footprint. New conveyor belts with lower friction factors in operation and cosinus phi compensation at the drives to reduce the reactive power are just a few of the green innovations Sandvik has introduced, according to Jabs. More and more conveyor owners are also turning to energy-saving LED lighting. For Denmark based FL Smidth, Jeremy Holland says the biggest advances in conveyor design over the past decade have involved software and the application of that software. He gives as examples the dynamic analysis of large, high capacity conveyors and the Discrete Element Modelling (DEM) of conveyor transfers to show how different materials flow through transfer chutes. “These tools in the hands of experienced engineers allow for design of reliable conveyor systems at the increased speeds and tonnages that we have seen over the past several years,” he adds.
Debottlenecking
As the world rebounds from the global recession of 2008-2009 and bulk handlers start to push capacities once again, companies all over the planet are conducting debottl
enecking studies to identify and help them to remove choke points in their site operations. Conveyors are also going, wider, faster and quieter as the evolution continues its greening.
Jabs says two key questions facing the bulk materials handling industry these days are:
“How do I get my overburden removed as cheaply, environmentally friendly and as safe as possible?”
“How do I get my ore to the port and onto the ship as cheaply, environmentally friendly and as safe as possible?”
Innovations
Jabs lists among innovations in the conveyor industry the Sandvik HM150 formed roller, which he says has a unique design and properties that greatly reduce the edge contact between balls and raceway in the bearing, thus extending bearing lifetime, something “extremely important in remote mining places with high maintenance personnel costs.” Another step forward, adds Jabs, is the wider use of frequency-controlled drives, although it took some time to gain market acceptance. FL Smidth is particularly proud of its Dual Track Mobile Sizer produced by its group in Spokane WA. Billed as the world’s first fully mobile truck dump station, the DTMS interfaces directly with rear dump trucks, cuts costs and reduces emissions in the haulage of waste mine materials or overburden. The DTMS uses a shiftable face conveyor and mobile overland hopper, giving a mine a highly mobile system, while considerably reducing its truck haul fleet. Other advances in the materials handling industry, says Holland, include low rolling rubber compounds for the belting, low friction idlers, and more efficient drive components to ensure the most energy efficient method of transporting materials possible.