Case study

How we helped a copper mine secure more than twice their annual grinding media budget in term of additional revenue

Copper mining - Secured recovery

Our client was examining ways of reducing its operating costs and approached Magotteaux to determine if a lower chrome ball could be used in its ball mill to reduce grinding media costs.

1
Client request

Our client was examining ways to decrease their griding media costs.

2
Proposal

The grinding media cost was reduced by the equivalent of 200,000 USD/year by switching to a lower cost Duromax® cast grinding ball. The customer indicated that should the plant suffer a loss in copper recovery they would revert to the initial alloy.

3
Monitoring

To determine if changes in the chemistry were induced and their potential adverse effects on copper recovery, examination of the pulp chemical data collected occurred on a fortnightly basis.

4
Result

The statistical analysis showed clearly that the copper recovery had decreased by at least 1.3 % with the change in grinding media alloy. This represented a gross loss in revenue of 9 million USD/year.

The site immediately requested that Magotteaux supply grinding media with the initial alloy.

Copper mining - Secured recovery
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