mining enterprises

When they talk aboutmining enterprises, images of giant quarries, heavy dump trucks and enrichment factories immediately come to mind. This is, of course, the basis. But those who actually work in the field know that behind this big picture lies a whole layer of less visible, but critically important equipment. Something that provides the very possibility of extraction and processing. And here there is often a gap between the expectations of the management of mining companies and the real capabilities of suppliers. Many people think that they bought a unit, installed it, and it works. But in reality, the most interesting part begins: adaptation to specific geological conditions, to local nutritional patterns, to the climate, which is the same in Kuzbass, and completely different in Vorkuta.

Equipment that is not visible, but is worth its weight in gold

Let's take magnetic separators, for example. For the uninitiated, it’s an iron box with a magnet inside. But in fact, it is one of the key elements in many processing plants, especially when working with iron ores or when cleaning coal. The efficiency of separation directly affects the final product yield and its quality. And this is where the catch lies. There are no universal solutions. Ore from deposit A ​​may differ in magnetic properties from ore from deposit B, even if they are in the same area. Particle size distribution, humidity - all this requires adjustment of equipment parameters.

I remember an incident at one of the coal mines in Siberia. We installed a separator to clean coal from rock. According to the passport, the efficiency is 95%. In fact, it was barely 80%. We started to figure it out. It turned out that the local rock had an unexpectedly high magnetic susceptibility, and part of it was carried away into the concentrate. Together with the manufacturing plant’s engineers, we had to literally recalculate the magnetic field strength on the spot and adjust the pulp feed rate. A week of experiments, selection of a regime. As a result, we reached 92%. Not ideal, but for those conditions it’s optimal. The management of the mine was pleased, but they still had a bad feeling: why didn’t it work right away? Because it is impossible to simulate all the nuances in advance without a trial run on real material.

In this context, the experience of some manufacturers who rely not on selling “hardware”, but on a comprehensive solution, is interesting. For example, a Chinese companyLONGI Corporation(Shenyang Scientific Electromagnetic Company LONGJI LLC). They have been on the topic since 1993, and their website (https://www.ljmagnet.ru) clearly positions them as an enterprise that develops and producesmining equipment. What’s important is that they have their own production base in Fushun, an area of ​​140,000 m2, and more than 1,200 employees. This is not a reseller. And judging by the fact that they produce about 4,000 units of equipment per year, they are clearly focused on serial, but at the same time, as I understand it, customized production. Formining enterprisesThis approach is often more profitable: there is a certain proven basic design that can be modified to suit your task, and the price will be adequate, in contrast to piecemeal European equipment.

Logistics and ?after-sales? - where the real problems lie

Any director of a mining and processing plant will say that a downtime at an enrichment plant means colossal losses. Therefore, when a key unit breaks down, for example, a separator or crusher, you need not just a guarantee, but a lightning-fast service response. And this is where problems begin for many, even large, suppliers from abroad. You can wait for a specialist from Europe or the USA for weeks, not to mention the cost of their travel and working hours.

Suppliers are from neighboring regions, the same Chinese, like the sameLONGI Corporation, can often provide faster support. Geographical proximity and well-established logistics corridors play a role. But there is a nuance here too. Prompt delivery of an engineer is one thing, but having the necessary spare parts in stock is another. It is ideal when the supplier has a service center or at least a warehouse of the most popular components in the region where customers are present. LONGI's description states that more than 60% of their employees have higher professional education. This is good, but for us, consumers, what is more important is what part of this 60% are mobile service engineers ready to travel to remote locations?mining enterprisesat any moment.

We once worked with a pumping equipment supplier. The unit stopped. According to the contract, the response is 72 hours. Their engineer actually arrived two days later. But he didn’t have the sleeve needed for repair with him, and their nearest warehouse in Russia didn’t have it either. They were brought from Germany. As a result, the downtime was almost two weeks. The lesson was learned the hard way. Now, when choosing a supplier, we definitely “feel out” not only their production capacity, but also spare parts logistics and service structure. Please provide response plans and statistics on equipment mean time to recovery (MTTR).

Price vs. Value: an eternal dispute in enterprises

There is a constant internal battle in the procurement department of any mining company. Financiers are demanding a reduction in CAPEX (capital expenditure). Technologists and chief mechanics demand reliability and maintainability, which often comes with a higher initial investment. Finding balance is an art.

Equipment from manufacturers such asLONGI Corporation, often finds itself in a winning price niche. It is, as a rule, cheaper than its European counterparts, but at the same time, judging by the scale of production (4000 units per year is serious), it has undergone some testing at many facilities. This is not a handicraft product. For many projects with a medium level of risk or for replacing outdated fleet at processing plants, this option becomes optimal. This is not “the cheapest”, but “reasonably reliable for the right price”.

However, there are also pitfalls. Sometimes, in pursuit of savings, equipment is purchased, the documentation for which is translated from Chinese clumsily or incompletely. And without clear manuals for operation, maintenance and, most importantly, fault diagnosis, our mechanics and power engineers find themselves in the position of blind kittens. You have to figure everything out on your own, through trial and error, which increases the risks and repair time. Therefore, now we always include in the contract a condition for the provision of a complete package of technical documentation in Russian that meets our standards (albeit with some assumptions). And we check this before signing the commissioning certificate.

Integration into existing technological chains

Another big topic. It's rare that something completely new is built.mining enterprise?from scratch?. More often - modernization, expansion, replacement of one section. And the new equipment must fit into the existing infrastructure: in terms of dimensions, connection to power grids (voltage, frequency), control systems.

It is usually easier with European equipment - they have been working on the global market for a long time and offer different options. There used to be difficulties with Asian suppliers, including Chinese companies - they often made things according to their own internal standards. Now the situation is changing. Large players, such as LONGI, which are clearly aimed at exporting (the Russian-language website confirms this), are usually ready to offer equipment to customer standards. But this needs to be clearly stated at the technical specification stage. Not “voltage 380V”, but “380V, 50 Hz, with a tolerance for fluctuations of +/- 10%?”, and so on for each parameter.

We had positive experience integrating a dryer drum from an Asian manufacturer. Their engineers sent a three-page questionnaire with questions about all connection points, environmental conditions, and required interfaces for the process control system. We filled it out and they adapted the project. As a result, the installation went through with almost no surprises. The key word is “almost?”. They didn’t take into account the height of the workshop in one place, so we had to slightly alter the gas duct on site. It’s a small thing, but it’s also time. Now we always require a 3D model of the equipment for virtual “fitting”. in the workshop.

Looking into the future: what will be in demand tomorrow?

The trends are obvious: digitalization, energy efficiency, safety. But how is this implemented in practice for specific equipment, such as a magnetic separator? It's no longer just a magnet and a drum. These are sensors for monitoring the temperature of the windings, vibration diagnostics of bearing units, systems for automatically adjusting the gap or field strength depending on the signal from the sensors at the input and output pulp.

Formining enterprisesthis means that when choosing equipment today, you need to look not at its passport data of today, but at its potential for integration into the overall dispatch and IoT system of tomorrow. Does it have analog outputs to connect to our SCADA? Is it possible to install additional sensors? Does the manufacturer provide software for primary data analysis from this unit?

Looking at the siteLONGI Corporation, it is clear that they are developing a line of theirmining equipment. The question is how deeply these “smart” ones are embedded in their new developments. functions. This will be one of the key competitive factors in the coming years. Not only price and reliability, but “intelligence?” and the ability to be part of the enterprise's digital footprint. Because in the end, this is exactly what will give the very effect for which everything is started: increasing the extraction of useful components, reducing specific energy costs and minimizing unscheduled downtime. And this, ultimately, is the main task of any mining team.