Modern Mining February 2018

PRODUCT News

Engineering group DRA has ordered six large screens from Kwatani for the R1,6 bil- lion Elikhulu gold tailings retreatment plant facility at Pan African Resources’ Evander operation in Mpumalanga. “Kwatani was involved from an early stage in this project, so we were able to customdesign this equipment at the study phase, allowing the EPC to readily inte- grate the design into the plant design,”says Kwatani CEO Kim Schoepflin. “Our focus Kwatani screens ordered for Elikhulu plant here was to deliver a cost effective, fit-for- purpose solution to the customer that is technically appropriate to their needs; which is to retreat one million tonnes per month of gold tailings.” Cognisant of the price pressures on all stakeholders, Kwatani was able to hold the price from the original quote date through to final agreement. Making the customer’s purchasing decision easier was also Kwatani’s substantial reference base in the gold sector, as well as at the Evander operations.

outside. A sufficiently experienced pilot can fly around without having to enter the structure at all. The Elios drone includes a full HD cam- era, a thermal camera, and an onboard LED lighting system with remotely-adjust- able intensity. This means that an array of onboard tools is available for any light- ing conditions. A cutting-edge wireless communications system with a live video feedback means that the drone can be brought into usually inaccessible places up to many hundreds of metres beyond the line of sight. The Elios ground station comprises a remote controller, a tablet, and a purpose- designed ground-control application, providing the pilot with live data, an SD live video stream captured by the drone, and all the information and controls on hand for efficient and safe remote operation. Skyriders, website: www.ropeaccess.co.za and one loaded carbon screen, through which some 2 000 m 3 of slurry will pass per hour. “We designed these six large screens to facilitate a commonality of spares in the plant, so that parts will be easily inter- changeable. This will reduce the necessity for holding a large inventory of these items,” she says. She emphasised the low margins inherent to gold retreatment operations, highlighting the importance of reliabil- ity in the way that Kwatani equipment is designed, tested and maintained. “Uptime of the plant is a key factor in sustaining a profitable operation in this sector, so we place high priority on both the process duty that our units must achieve and their mechanical durability to achieve low cost of ownership over their lifetimes,” Schoepflin says. Kwatani, tel (+27 11) 923-9000

“We also helped the EPC with designs for ancillary equipment, assisting in holding down costs for the overall plant structure,” says Schoepflin. Four of the six screens – the two trash screens and two carbon safety screens – are in excess of 3 m wide, feeding 1 500 tonnes per hour. The remaining units comprise one regenerated carbon screen

One of the screens for Elikhulu in Kwatani’s facility.

Skyriders soars with latest drone technology The latest inspection technology for indoor and confined spaces has been introduced to South Africa by Skyriders, which has acquired an Elios collision-tolerant drone from Flyability of Switzerland.

process and Elios procedures and now has all the necessary documentation in place for the Elios drone to be operated locally. “The drone is already in use at a major petrochemical company in Mpumalanga. They were extremely impressed, as this now means they have access to parts of their plants not accessible to visual inspec- tion before, as either visibility was too poor, or it was too costly to do so,” Zinn elaborates. “The fact that it is collision-tolerant means now not only can we only enter furnace areas, but can go right up to a burner, for example. It opens up huge possibilities for us. With certain limita- tions, the Elios drone can even be flown ‘blind’,” he says. This means a repeater can be placed in a boiler, for example, where- upon the drone can be flown in from the

The leading rope-access specialist has already deployed drone technology spe- cifically for visual inspection purposes in indoor environments like the large coal- fired boilers and ducting at Eskom. The problem with using traditional drones is that they tend to lose their GPS tracking and stability when used indoors, which means that exceptional piloting skills are required. “We then came across the Elios drone from Flyability,” says Skyriders Marketing Manager Mike Zinn. The Skyriders pilot went to Switzerland in September 2017 for extensive training in terms of the European

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48  MODERN MINING  February 2018