Because of increasingly limited mineral resources and deteriorating ore body grades, energy costs are becoming a significant factor in mining. Companies are now looking for systems that work at a high capacity in difficult and remote climates, while limiting energy and operating costs.

Helmut Oberrisser, the head of systems and solutions for Sandvik, is aware of the issue. “Limitations on mineral resources will require deeper deposits, located at farther distances, higher stripping ratios and exploitation of lower-grade deposits,” he says. “Haulage is the main cost driver in mining (beneficiation is the largest energy consumer in the whole value chain), and energy costs are likely to increase proportionally in the future.” For many companies, IPCC is becoming the chosen solution to this problem.

A complete mining system, IPCC brings together multiple technologies including crushing, conveying and mobile machines to form an alternative and efficient option to truck and shovel systems. IPCC uses hydraulic excavators or rope shovels, along with fully mobile crushers or semi-mobile crushing stations. Although there are many IPCC systems, the concept is the same – striving to enable continual working systems within the mining pit.

IPCC saves energy and operational costs partly because it reduces the reliance on trucks, meaning lower fuel costs, personnel demand and maintenance requirements. “Trucks have high operating costs, with lifetimes of only six to eight years, and they require a lot of maintenance and consume a lot of expensive wear parts,” Oberrisser says. “On average, six or seven crew members are required to run a 24-hour operation of one truck, including maintenance and construction of access roads. IPCC reduces or eliminates these costs.”

As companies look to sift through more and more material to retrieve ore, IPCC is also able to handle the high-capacity work this demands at a much higher level than truck and shovel operations, making it ideally suitable for large mining operations working with medium and hard material.

Where Sandvik excels over competing providers is its ability to deliver all the required equipment of an IPCC system. Sandvik is able to customize systems depending on a variety of factors unique to each mine, such as planned annual capacity and development, layout and rock material properties. “This is Sandvik’s strength,” Oberrisser says. “We don’t need to promote a certain type of equipment just because of gaps in the product line. We have the complete offering in-house, so we can optimize equipment choices.”

Ruj Bunduwongse, vice president of the mining division, who is responsible for the Mae Moh mine project in Thailand, was aware of the importance of choosing the right equipment that could lower energy costs in a difficult working environment. His employer, Italian Thai Development Public Company (ITD), received an eight-year contract to remove 35 million cubic metres of overburden per year. The overburden ranged from dry and abrasive to muddy and sticky, and the mine was known for its demanding conditions. Temperatures are high in the summertime, while winter monsoon rains flood the pit and produce muddy ground that is difficult for trucks to navigate. This required a full-time operating system with excellent cooling technology, and that also saved power and limited truck traffic.

“In selecting equipment we considered capital cost, fuel cost, electricity cost, maintenance cost and uninterrupted operation in all weather conditions,” Ruj explains. ITD chose two systems to deal with the changing conditions – a continuous system consisting of two production lines with 11,000 tonnes per hour capacity, each with 4,000 to 5,500 tonne-per-hour semi-mobile crushers, and a truck and shovel system. The complete systems were delivered and implemented over a 12-month period.

The project has been a success. “During the past few years, we have seen fuel prices rise and large tyres become unavailable,” says Ruj. “With IPCC we found that those problems had a minimum impact on our project, and truck traffic is seldom found in our pits. We found that the IPCC system helps exceed our plan production each year, and the project was finished ahead of time due to its reliability and unmatched machine availability.”

One key to minimizing costs was the limited travel distance between pit and conveyer. IPCC can replace trucks completely with fully mobile crushers or partly with semi-mobile crushers, leading to big savings (see diagram, left). For ITD, avoiding the sometimes muddy terrain was a key to success. “The in-pit travelling distance for dump trucks was limited to an average of 700 metres from shovel to crusher,” says Ruj. “Limiting the distance travelled means lower emissions and controlled fuel costs.”

There are likely to be more success stories as companies rely on IPCC to meet the challenge of high-capacity mining and energy costs. In South America, Sandvik has recently been awarded a contract to provide two of its new PF300 crushing systems.

Oberrisser is excited about the new design. “The superior features in design and operation are extraordinarily suitable for high capacities,” he says. The system is fully mobile, making it more flexible than other IPCC systems, while also reducing dead weight – a significant factor in energy and operation costs. As the energy and operation costs required to access depleting mineral resources increase, further IPCC developments are a welcome step.