ABB long-term service agreement supports grinding reliability for Atalaya Mining

The mining company, which produces copper concentrates and silver by-product at its Project Riotinto site in the Andalucía region of southwest Spain, uses an ABB GMD, one of the most powerful mill drive systems on the market. It is considered as the ‘workhorse’ for grinding operations, providing reliability and availability for processing plants such as Riotinto, which has a processing capacity of up to 15 million tpy.

After its recent expansion, Riotinto mine increased its annual copper production target to approximately 55 000 tpy. The ABB LTSA with an ABB Lifecycle Manager has supported a production record at the mine in 2020 and production was approximately the same in 2021.

Through the service programme, Atalaya Mining benefits from lifecycle management to plan, coordinate and execute services, including corrective, preventive and predictive system maintenance with rapid response to emergency calls and an adaptive approach to meet modifications in production, maintenance or shutdown schedules. This means minimising the risk of costly unscheduled downtime, extending the life of installed systems and optimising process performance.

At the same time, ABB Ability Predictive Maintenance for grinding, a digital condition monitoring solution to maintain, assess and analyse GMD systems and increase safety through continuous checks, has been deployed. It considers past and real-time data to anticipate maintenance requirements and to avoid unplanned production downtime.

Overall, the LTSA maximises availability, optimises asset performance and facilitates safe operation of the equipment through a single-point-of-contact, ABB’s Remote Diagnostic Services, routine maintenance and upgrades.

“The combination of ABB GMD design, the continuous monitoring and the use of ABB Ability^TM Predictive Maintenance for grinding means that the system is working at its highest efficiency,” said Dimitris Fotiadis, Head of Lifecycle Care, ABB. “ABB will continue to support Atalaya Mining through machine operation and routine maintenance over the long term.”

Read the article online at: https://www.globalminingreview.com/finance-business/31012022/abb-long-term-service-agreement-supports-grinding-reliability-for-atalaya-mining/