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Siemens supplies two Gearless Mill Drives for mine in Venezuela

  • December 26, 2007
  • Siemens
  • SIEMENS
  • News

Summary

Erlangen – December 26, 2007 - The Siemens Industrial Solutions and Services Group (I&S) has received an order from Compania Aurifera Brisas del Cuyuni C.A., Venezuela, a subsidiary of Gold Reserve Inc. in Spokane, Washington, USA, to supply two gearless mill drives for an open-cast mining operation. The purpose of these drives is to improve the efficiency of grinding copper ore. The order is worth a total of some EUR 20 million. The drives are due to enter service in 2009.Compania Aurifera Brisas del Cuyuni operates an open-cast mine under the project name Brisas within the Km 88 mining district in Bolivar State in southeast Venezuela. In an area of 500 hectares, the company extracts about 14 tonnes of gold and 28,500 tonnes of copper per year. 70,000 tonnes of ore are processed each day. The reserves are estimated to amount to 415 million tonnes.Siemens is supplying two gearless mill drives for two 11 meter high SAG (semi-autogenous grinding) mills, each with an output of 20,000 kilowatts at a speed of 9.26 rpm. The purpose of these is to ensure more effective grinding of the copper ore. The speed of the drives is variable, which allows different operating modes to be implemented, such as soft starting and stopping. As a result it is also possible to adapt the speed to suit the varying requirements of the material being ground. As the drives have no need for a clutch or gearbox, there is less maintenance involved and downtimes are shorter. Higher efficiency compared with conventional drives reduces energy consumption and saves costs. The drives are controlled and monitored with the aid of an HMI (Human Machine Interface) that makes it simple for the operator to deal with all mill operations. The mills can be controlled either locally or from the central control room. Local inspection for maintenance work can be carried out with a manual control console, for example. The Siemens Industrial Solutions and Services Group (I&S) is the integrator of systems and solutions for industrial and infrastructure facilities and global service provider for the plant and projects business covering planning, installation, operation and the entire life cycle. I&S uses its own products and systems and process technologies in order to enhance productivity and improve competitiveness of companies in the sectors of metallurgy, water treatment, pulp and paper, oil and gas, marine engineering, open-cast mining, airport logistics, postal automation, intelligent traffic systems and industrial services. In fiscal 2007 (to September 30), I&S employed a total of 37,000 people worldwide and achieved total sales of EUR 8.894 billion. Learn More

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