Metso collaborates with MPM in Chile to deliver a FIT™ Recrushing plant

Metso has developed and supplied a FIT™ Recrushing plant to Mantencion Proyectos Montajes (MPM), a contractor customer located in Chile, which operates the plant for a copper producing end mining customer.

The project kicked off in 2021 when the customer approached us about a need for a new crushing and screening plant. The FIT Recrushing plant capacity had to be able to handle between 400-450 t/h. The application was to help the end customer to boost the SAG mill capacity in the main circuit.

The main challenge from MPM was the delivery time. The FIT Recrushing plant would process hard SAG pebble material and send the product back to the main circuit. Therefore, the sooner the FIT Recrushing would be in operation, the sooner both MPM and the end producer would start to see the benefits.

There were two additional challenges: the plant was running with a material different from what was originally specified, and the number of steel media balls coming from the SAG mill was much higher than expected. Both were limiting the efficiency of the operation.

“This was a very collaborative effort with the customer. Knowing a holistic view on the challenges they were facing was key to know exactly the optimal solution to recommend,” says Fábio Watanabe, Project Manager, at Metso Brazil.

“The FIT™ station was designed for this pebble crushing application. With the modularity of being able to easily select the crushing and screening equipment required, and quick delivery and installation schedule, the customer was confident with what we recommended,” says Edis Nunes, Manager, Product & Sales Support.

The sustainability benefits were also of interest to the customer. With the FIT stations, due to the modular design, installation was expeditious and minimum welding was required, which helped the customer lower the emissions and create less waste on site. Another distinguishing feature that the customer requested was to have the equipment painted a certain color to promote gender equality. With this, certain components of the plant painted in a pink colour.

“It was amazing to be a part of supporting our customer to promote this area of inclusivity. With this being such a big initiative in South America, it was great to partner with MPM to make this so visible on site,” says Fernando Samanez, VP, Minerals Sales.

Training sessions were applied by Metso experts to MPM operational and key people to understand, plan and follow procedures and instructions applied for the operation and maintenance based on a fully descriptive manual.

“The teamwork between Metso and MPM to achieve a record time for installation, commissioning and start up was an amazing feat,” says Daniel Vega, General Manager at MPM. “Even with the difficulties that were presented to us, such as the COVID pandemic during the development period, we were still able to efficiently coordinate virtually with Metso’s Engineering team in Brazil and Chile. This lead to minimizing engineering, manufacturing and construction time required and ultimately, a very successful result.”

The crushing plant operation during start-up phase faced challenges related to the processing of pebbles containing substantial amount of non-crushable material. The collaborative development of comprehensive studies and subsequent implementation of process adjustments by MPM and Metso were crucial to improve the plant availability and achieve the performance targets, while being able to minimise the delivery time. To overcome these challenges, Metso and MPM say they have firmed up their commitment to deliver exceptional results and maintain a market-leading global presence.