Two Australian mining projects were recognised at Bentley Systems’ annual 2016 Be Inspired Awards – the only competition of its kind that recognises excellence and innovation in infrastructure across the globe.
The two winning projects were the $500 million Roy Hill Water Supply and Dewatering Network in Western Australia and $65 million Tanami Expansion Project in northern Australia.
Roy Hill Water Supply and Dewatering Network
Roy Hill is a 55 million tonne per annum iron ore mining, rail and port project in Pilbara, Western Australia. With the price of Iron Ore projected to fall as low as AU$30 per tonne in 2017/18, all operations teams are focused on lowering costs to maintain market competitiveness. For Roy Hill’s Water Management Team, these cost-savings were to be found in the careful modelling and design of the Roy Hill Mine water system – an integrated network of water supply and dewatering.
But with the resources industry adapting to lower ore prices, the Team was required to respond to highly changeable mine plans by making system alterations at very short notice while retaining overall efficiency and cost effectiveness. The differing water quality/quantity requirements of consumer facilities across the 300 km2 site, and the two distinct Raw and Saline water systems made this all the more challenging.
By partnering with Bentley Systems, Roy Hill was able to create a hydraulic model to plan and design the entire dewatering network. This allowed Roy Hill’s Water Management Team to better and more quickly understand the implications of its decisions, avoiding delays to mining operations or risks to the dewatering network. Significant cost-savings are also expected across the 20 year life of mine (LOM) including;
- $16 million by better modelling and designing the system’s operating pressure
- $10 million by reduced equipment costs
- $1 million in costly redesigns and alterations
- 20% in OPEX (operational expenditure) and a further 20% in operating run hours and fuel use
Tetra Tech Proteus Tanami Expansion
The Tanami Expansion Project is an upgrade for the Newmont owned Granites Gold Mine, located in the Tanami Desert, northern Australia. It aimed to increase the production capacity of the 20-year-old plant to 2.6 million tonnes per year while providing a safer method for producing the mine backfill material needed for the site.
Tetra Tech Proteus was lead designer for the project’s detailed engineering phase and was tasked with installing additional equipment into a constrained footprint on the existing mine site. From the outset, Tetra Tech was faced with a dated design layout of the Granites Gold Mine. To understand the workings of this 20-year-old plant the team partnered with Bentley Systems to develop a comprehensive 3D model of the plant, bringing it to life and creating the new expansion design with a smaller footprint that would otherwise have been impossible.
With the multiple design changes that were made throughout this project, all intelligence associated with the drawings also had to first be retained before being modified. By using Bentley Systems’ PID (Piping & Instrumentation Diagram) software Tetra Tech was able to batch upload the changing design and engineering data into the PID and re-sync without having to re-tag each component. This increased the efficiency of drafting time eight-fold – from 40 hours to 5 hours per drawing. By also auto-generating the piping isometrics, Tetra Tech was able to save its client an additional $250,000.
Image courtesy of Roy Hill
