Success Stories Reduce ore fine ratio
Need to reduce ore fines
The United Manganese of the Kalahari mine (UMK mine), located in South Africa, produces 3 million tons of manganese every year. The plant was reporting excessive manganese ore fines impacting negatively the final product and its price. The CV02 screening results were concerning, as the excessive fines (-10mm) ranged between 21% and 23%. To reduce the fines, UMK mine management scheduled a workshop with all relevant onsite stakeholders: blasting, loading and hauling teams, including Enaex Mining Technical Services (EMTS).
Thank you for all the work done, we now need to roll this out to the other areas in the mine.
Gerrit Ludolf,
Mining production manager at UMK
Our emulsion adapted to our customer
To respond to our customers’ needs, we have changed the blend ratio of Vertex A®, a heavy emulsion blend with high energy specially designed to achieve the desired fragmentation in difficult environments, wet holes or hard rock conditions.
The benefits of this new ratio are:
Creating a customized product
Surpassing our customer expectations
UMK mine reserved and stockpiled 14 174 tons of manganese ore from the first trial blast hence, limiting blending from other ore sources and revealing immediate feedback. The CV02 screening results revealed a Lumpy Fines ratio of 17%. With the new version of Vertex A®, we were able to not only meet UMK’s goal but also to exceed them by 3%. The marketable manganese produced by volume increased significantly.
We have created stronger bonds with our customers by listening to their needs and proposing to them a tailor-made solution to answer them. The EMTS team arrived at an ideal composition to improve the ore quality after numerous technical analyses and tests demonstrating how innovation and entrepreneurship were our strengths.
