GIW Industries helped Chilean copper miner achieve what it thought impossible: developing a mill pump that can run at least 4,000 hours continuously without shutdown. Not only did GIW experts meet the customer’s need, but their innovative improvements to material developments in the MDX-750 high-wear wet end components will save this massive copper mine an estimated $6 million per mill line.
In 2009, after years of dealing with poor performing mill pumps, requiring a costly mill outage every 800 hours, leaders of the copper mine began looking for an alternate supplier that could help them maintain a more reliable shutdown schedule, minimize expenses, and meet a high safety standard.
“GIW rapidly responded to the customer’s appeal for help by custom-designing an improved suction liner and impeller to be installed inside the existing competitor pump, providing improved hydraulics and wear life,” said Hernan Palavecino, GIW South American regional sales manager. “During the initial run of the new GIW technology, the customer was astonished to see an ‘almost new’ suction liner after first inspection at 1,300 continuous hours. Keep in mind that the customer was accustomed to failures at 800 hours with their old supplier.”
After this vast improvement in performance, mine personnel noticed the presence of tramp balls in their process. Out of fear of a catastrophic failure, which could severely impact worker safety, they again turned to GIW experts for a solution. As a result, GIW then designed and built a complete jacketed casing in just two months to resolve this potential safety issue. The mining company was so impressed they decided to replace the entire competitor pump with a complete GIW MDX-750, the world’s largest mill pump, which provided 2,000 hours of reliable wear life and reduced plant outages to just four per year.
