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MMG Century Mine: SAG Mill Stabilising Control
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FAST FACTS
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CUSTOMER
MMG |
LOCATION
Century Mine, Queensland |
PROJECT
SAG Mill Stabilising Control |
DATE
01-Jun-2007 |
PLANT DETAILS
The Century Mine, in the remote lower Gulf region of north-west Queensland, is Australia's largest zinc mine based on concentrate production. The open cut mine also produces lead concentrate.
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CONTROL SYSTEM
Foxboro I/A
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“Century Mine recognises that grinding is a critical process in operations and it is important to have a good quality, robust, high performance control system that can be maintained independently, said Andrew Thornton, Principal Process Control Specialist, MIPAC “They embarked on this project with a view ultimately to improving recovery and therefore production output and profitability.”
Project Overview
The Century Zinc SAG mill has been the recipient of two major advanced control projects since its commissioning in 1999. Over time both systems had failed to meet the needs of the mill and operating staff lost confidence, preferring to operate the mill semi-automatically. The first system used expert system technology and failed due to a lack of site based experience and expertise. The second system although DCS based was unnecessarily complicated, failed to deliver performance and did not meet operating objectives.
MIPAC Solution
MIPAC provided a practical solution for SAG mill control using four key strategies:
• Determining the real requirements of Century personnel.
• Making the best use of the plant DCS (e.g. model-based control).
• Loop-tuning and commissioning skills.
• Support for operators to understand and use the system.
Results
The result is a robust control strategy which stabilises the SAG mill and meets operating objectives. Operators see this control strategy as a valuable tool in the day to day operation of the primary grinding circuit. With grinding circuit stability achieved, Century Zinc is keen to embark on an optimising control project.
Download Project Profile:
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![[pp] MMG Century Zinc](/CatalystImages/Literature/pdf.png)
