In August, to cooperate with the shutdown maintenance of the Refinery, and improve the performance and availability of equipment, the third overhaul starts in KBK Mine.

There are around 30 maintenance items during this overhaul which covers Hydraulic Sluicing, Washing Plant, Beneficiation Plant etc. Among these items, two are emphasized, one is the overhaul of No.3 Apron Feeder, the other is the replacement of slurry pipe line to Beneficiation Plant.

Apron feeder is an important device to transfer the raw ore from bin to drum washer. With years of operation, the No.3 feeder’s performance has been deteriorated significantly, the support rollers are damaged and the chains are worn. Therefore, all the support rollers and chains of No.3 feeder will be replaced entirely. After the maintenance, the feeder’s performance will be overall recovered and the downtime will be reduced so that the washing efficiency will be improved obviously.

There are two slurry pipelines ahead of Beneficiation Plant declines on the about 300-meter slope, due to the high flow rate and high chromite content of raw slurry, and with years of operation, the pipeline thickness now is abraded and thinned, which caused frequent leakage in this part and increased work load for maintenance team. Thus, the KBK Mine decided to replace these two pipelines on the slope, so that will alleviate the leakage and maintenance frequency thus improve the efficiency and stability of slurry transportation.

KBK Mine always emphasizes “safety first”, site HSE monitors the maintenance tasks every day to ensure the team follow safety policies, and the maintenance team appropriately arrange the tasks, people and equipment to ensure all the tasks can be done safely and orderly.

This is the last overhaul this year, which paved the way for high yield production in rainy season and improve stability and availability of equipment.

Repairing the apron feeder

Welding slurry pipelines

Replacing apron feeder plates