Case Study: Citic Mining Project

Introduction

CITIC Limited is the largest conglomerate in China and the largest steel producer globally. CITIC Pacific Mining (CPM), a wholly-owned subsidiary of CITIC, has developed the Sino Iron Project. The Sino Iron Project is the largest magnetite mining and processing operation in Australia. The six processing lines in this concentrator are designed to process 24 million tonnes of high-grade magnetite concentrate annually.

Background

In order to keep the project running smoothly, a 500kL fuel farm needed to be completed and ready to provide fuel to ships coming in to load the magnetite for export. CPM looked into traditional piping methods but quickly realised that they would be expensive and time-consuming. There was also the potential for quality issues, which would mean that pipes would need to be sent back to the city for re-work. In order to avoid these problems, CPM needed a solution that could adapt as problems arose.

Solution

When you are dealing with a project involving 330m of piping at a remote fuel farm, the margin for error is close to nil. That was the exact scenario facing CPM Sino Iron plant at Cape Preston in the Pilbara region of Western Australia.

Five different sizes of piping, ranging from 28mm to 168mm, were required, and any errors or discrepancies in traditional welding would result in a large loss of time and productivity. This is why CPM elected to use Ibex Australia’s Impress® stainless steel piping system to achieve the result on time and well below budget.

Result

The use of Impress® press fit technology meant that the installation was completed in a fraction of the time it would have taken using traditional methods. In addition, there were no quality issues with the pipes, which meant that they could be put to use immediately. This saved CPM a great deal of time and money and ensured that the project was completed on schedule.