Modern Mining January 2022

PUMPS AND VALVES

Reiterating the need for a holistic approach to pumps and valves To achieve optimum system efficiency and lifecycle performance, end-users need to adopt a holistic approach to pump systems and valves within their mineral process- ing operations. In a one-on-one with Modern Mining , Marnus Koorts, general manager pumps at Weir Minerals Africa, says the importance of dealing with a supplier that offers an integrated solution and has a holistic understanding of the process, cannot be reiterated enough. By Munesu Shoko .

Marnus Koorts, general manager pumps at Weir Minerals Africa.

T raditionally, the various engineering disciplines involved in the design of mineral processing plants rarely collaborated on the subtleties associated with pump, pipe and valve sizing to consider their overall impact on operating stability. Consequently, optimum process control was seldom achieved at plant start-up. Marnus Koorts, general manager pumps at Weir Minerals Africa, says pumps and valves play a critical role in the overall efficient and safe operation of a plant and should therefore be treated with the “utmost respect” they deserve. Weir Minerals has always treated mineral pro- cessing as a system of interdependent pieces of equipment – from mills, pumps and hoses, to valves, hydrocyclones and screens. Based on that under- standing, the company offers some of the widest ranges of pumps and valves in the market. “Pumps and valves form part of a collective of pieces of equipment that should work in harmony for a processing plant to achieve its production and

safety objectives. These components never work in isolation; they all interconnect with each other,” says Koorts. “Suppliers should therefore have a holistic under- standing of every part of the system, given that it’s impractical to optimise a single process or compo- nent in isolation. At Weir Minerals, we believe that the economic operation of a mineral process plant hinges on the overall efficiency of all pieces of equip- ment deployed across the whole system, including pumps and valves.” Pumping solutions According to Koorts, pumps play a vital role in every plant, and without them, nothing gets transported from one process to the other within the system. In a typical plant, there are a couple of mills, one or two large clusters of hydrocylones, and hundreds of pumps. While there are various types of pumps within the

Centre: The Delta Industrial valves installed in a platinum mine.

Below: The Isogate range of valves is suited to more moderate applications.

34  MODERN MINING  January 2022