
Myra Falls Paste Plant Retrofit
Rearden Mining Consultants took on the successful retrofit of a Paste Plant project for a Canadian mine from 2018 through 2019. This project was very challenging and spanned many disciplines. Managing Director Sean James was responsible for both the Project Management and the Construction Management for the project.
Challenge
The original plant was not capable of distributing paste to the underground mine.
Our approach
Rearden Mining Consultants worked closely with design engineers to optimize the design for practicality and cost, making the most of existing resources while also taking a long-term value approach when considering plant upgrades and installations. For example, although the original design and study considered making use of existing PLC equipment and simply modifying the existing program, it was decided that a more robust long-term plan would be to upgrade the PLC and completely re-write the automation program so that it would not only have a much greater life expectancy but would also be more compatible with existing systems on-site as time went on.
Project highlights
The new plant is able to deliver an optimized paste backfill to multiple zones deep within the mine as well as generate a filter cake which can be trucked to a safe surface storage location. The plant is currently being used to backfill historical and new stoping voids as the mine resumes operations and seeks to increase their mineable inventory.
Deliverables
- Automation upgrades
- Plant-wide electrical upgrades
- Structural Steel upgrades and installation
- Pump rebuilds and new pump installations including paste pumps
- Foundation preparation and geotechnical assessments
- Concrete installations including updated footings, floor pours, raft pour for Silo Support, and a new concrete sump installation
- Binder Silo Erection
- Disc Filter rebuild and reinstallation
- New Disc Filter installation
- Thickener refurbishment
- Conveyor installations
- UG and Surface Reticulation
- All supply bids, negotiations, and contracts
- Site management of multiple contractors