Group's plan to focus on projects where its extensive portfolio of engineered products gives it a commercial advantage, is paying off. A consortium of its subsidiaries recently won a Β£6 million package of pumping equipment and rubber pipe linings by Chile's
Colluahuast copper mine, the largest project of its type in the world. We report here on who supplied what, and why.
Located 4500 m above sea level, about 1800 km n o r t h of Santiago, the Collahuasi mine started operations last October. It will p r o d u c e 380 000 tonnes of fine c o p p e r concentrate and cathodes a year. Total investment amounts to US$1.8 billion shared by Falconbridge, Canada, and Minorco, Chile (44% each) with Japanese companies taking up the remaining share.
A joint-venture company, comprising Bechtel and Davy International, was a p p o i n t e d engineering, procurement, construction and management consultants for the project, and it p l a c e d the p u m p i n g contracts with Weir.
Six Weir subsidiaries had joined forces to win the Group's largest ever p u m p contract from the international mining industry.Weir group's comb i n e d p u m p m a k i n g o p e r a t i o n s --Weir Pumps, EnviroTech (trading u n d e r the brand names of Galigher, Ash P u m p and GEHO), and Floway -exercised their global capabilities by p r o d u c i n g the equipment from half a dozen manufacturing plants in Chile, America,Holland and Scotland.
On top of that,Weir provided a wide range of mature p r o d u c t s as well as n e w l y -d e v e l o p e d e q u i p m e n t for a w i d e range of a p p l i c a t i o n s at Collahuasi, including s e c o n d a r y mill circuit and process duties,separation of coarse and fine materials, clean liquid transfer, water feed, reclaiming water at the tailings dam,concentrate and general slurry transfer. h \ ASH 450 MCH pumps manufactured by Vulco Chile for the Collahuasi project.