Modern Mining April 2022

Kwatani designs vibrating screens for modular plants to meet exact process requirements. and components from OEMs such as Kwatani, at a much lower capital cost when compared to tra ditional processing plants. As an OEM with years of experience, we design vibrating screens and feeders for modular plants to meet the exact pro cess requirements the plant will be processing. If a modular plant, for example, is designed to pro cess 250 tph, Kwatani will customise all its required vibratory screening equipment to meet the required application by selecting the ideal screening param eters for efficient performance. The OEM tailors the mechanical structure of its vibrating unit, including drive size and isolation, while fitting seamlessly into the modular plant. Once we have designed the vibrating units, we are able to reproduce them in bulk and further reduce lead times,” Kim Schoepflin explains. Kwatani’s 45 years of experience in the business has seen the company fine-tune its ability to speedily produce equipment to specification and dramati cally reduce lead times. This is an imperative as new projects are often driven by commodity cycles and pricing. “Projects are typically executed when product price is high and processing plants need to be sup plied at highly expediated timelines,” she adds. Aside from meeting modular plant requirements for new mining projects, mining houses also turn to Kwatani’s expertise for brownfield optimisation projects. With the majority of modular mineral processing plants having been constructed well over a decade ago, brownfields optimisation projects are increas ing in demand, driven by the need to keep up with changing mineralogy needs or the changing require ments of the mine. The latter may need an additional process step which it can achieve with an additional module or the mine may wish to perform a more stra tegic upgrade of the existing plant and equipment it is currently using. “As mining operations progress through the ore, the minerology can change over time with some changes being significant enough for the original design of the plant to no longer meet the process requirements and a modular plant upgrade is needed. Based on our depth of mechanical and

metallurgical expertise and on-site experience, Kwatani works closely with the mine and the sup plier of the modular plant to assist with optimising the processing plant. We have, on several occa

Multiple Kwatani screens operating in a modular plant.

sions, assisted mining houses to de-bottleneck such plants by implementing customised griz zly, screen or feeder equipment solutions aimed at increasing capacity,” says Kim Schoepflin. Top notch skills Underpinning Kwatani’s success and a key reason for the Sandvik acquisition has been Kwatani’s

Projects are typically executed when product price is high and processing plants need to be supplied at highly expediated timelines - Kim Schoepflin.

IP, which is driven by is its dynamic, highly skilled workforce, including minerologists, metallurgists and mining engineers. “The team is innovative and flexible, and adapts easily to meet the needs of changing times, as with the Covid-19 pandemic and supply chain con straints, which require that we work flexible hours to meet increased production demands,” says Jan Schoepflin. 

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