Mining & Minerals

Worldwide consumption of steel, aluminum, and electronics has significantly increased the mining demand for precious metals, base metals, and mineral commodities.

With increased demand comes the need for reliable material handling in the Mining and Minerals industries.  Whether it is stockpiles, dump hoppers, ore-passes, surge bins or belt-to-belt transfer chutes, proven, practical solutions are available to improve handling of ores and concentrates.

Mining & Minerals Services

• Plant visit to audit process or problems
• ROM, ore, concentrate, flow and TML testing
• Silo, bin, hopper, or feeder design
• Stockpile design (gravity-reclaim)
• Transfer chute design using proven DEM analysis
• Ore pass flow troubleshooting and design
• Silo structural engineering
• Abrasive wear testing to assess liners

Whether you are mining iron ore, bauxite, copper or gold ore, Jenike & Johanson helps facilities worldwide keep materials flowing reliably (mass flow), providing higher throughputs and increased profits.

Common Mining & Minerals Industry Challenges

At the mine site, the run-of-mine (ROM) ore, as well as crushed ore, needs to be stored, reclaimed, and conveyed reliably, whereas at the processing plant, the concentrate needs to be fed reliably to furnaces, calciners, roasters, or smelters.  Moisture content, time of storage, particle size distribution, and impurities (such as clay) can drastically alter the reliability of material flow through a handling system.  Poor flow will interrupt process uniformity and increase the costs for the mining operation.  Particle size segregation in stockpiles and bins can cause problems particularly when handling erratic concentration of fines.  Segregation can lead to problems in uniform feeding to pyro-processing or hydrometallurgical operations.  Many ores and mineral oxides attack hoppers and transfer chutes causing rapid abrasive wear.  Fine concentrates and powders can be prone to flooding (flushing), creating poor process control.  Gravity reclaim stockpiles often experience ratholing, resulting in severely restricted “live” capacity.

Common Materials Handled

Below, please find a shortened list of the bulk materials we have successfully handled in the Mining & Minerals industry to date. Please note the below list is just a small sampling of the materials we've handled for clients in the Mining & Minerals industry.

• Iron ore, iron ore concentrate, DRI
• Bauxite, refined alumina
• Limestone, lime
• Copper ore, copper concentrate
• Trona ore, soda ash
• Potash (K2O)
• Precious metals (gold, platinum, silver)
• Base metals (nickel, lead, zinc)
• Coal and coke

Mining & Minerals Industry Clients

Below, please find a sampling of clients who we have successfully provided bulk material engineering services for in the Mining and Minerals industries.

• BHP
• Rio Tinto
• CVRD (Vale)
• Potash Corp.
• Anglo American
• US Gypsum
• Atlantic Copper
• Engelhard
• Kennecott Copper