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You'll Even Find Us in the Harshest Environment in the World
Mining around the world for minerals from coal to diamonds
is an enormous industry with annual sales measured in the
trillions of dollars. Most mining activity occurs in remote
locations, miles from the nearest conventional sources of
power. Mining operations also entail the bulk movement of
earth and minerals on a massive scale. In the vast majority
of these operations, electric power is generated on site via
diesel engine driven generators and/or steam driven generators.
Illustration #2 4” Subsea flowmeter
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Diesel fuel can only be brought into the mining sites
in bulk at specific times of the year. Mines located
in the polar or near-polar regions can only bring in
fuel when the ground is frozen to the point that the
soil will support the weight of the transport trucks.
However, the transportation cycle must be completed
prior to the full onslaught of winter conditions that
make such transport overland extremely hazardous if
not impossible. Diesel fuel is also a hazardous material
in terms of accidental release into the environment
and is often regulated as such by local jurisdictions.
For all these reasons, the accurate accounting of diesel
fuel received, dispensed and consumed at a remote mining
site is of extreme importance to the proper operation
of the mine. Hoffer Flow Controls has the breadth of
solutions to help make this task easier.
Under some of the harshest conditions on the planet
Conflow Technologies, our Canadian Representative, is
able to provide Hoffer turbine flowmeters as a solution
to one of the largest gold and diamond mining companies
in the world. Located in the Northwest Territories of
Canada, the site includes its own diesel fuel fired
power and steam generation plant and employs in excess
of 200 pieces of diesel powered mobile mining equipment.
While working on the initial application, Conflow learned
of additional requirements for measuring diesel fuel.
The applications included fuel being received on-site
and transferred from bulk storage facilities to individual
points of use in the power generation plant and a second
application at dispensing points for fueling the mobile
equipment. These applications were all ideal matches
for Hoffer turbine flowmeters. To date, Conflow has
installed 25 Hoffer turbine meters at the site for the
following applications.
Hoffer turbine flowmeters are installed on all bulk
fuel receiving lines. The receiving lines are equipped
with air eliminators, supplied by Conflow Technologies.
These meters are used to verify the actual fuel received
from the tanker trucks. Two main distribution lines
from a tank farm, feed fuel to various secondary tanks
that are located at various stations in the mine. Hoffer
turbines are installed on these two distribution lines.
This allows the mine to track their main fuel inventory.
(Fuel received versus fuel transferred.)
Each of the secondary distribution lines is equipped
with Hoffer turbines. These include heavy equipment
refueling stations, along with boiler fuel consumption
applications in the powerhouse. These flowmeters allow
the mine to track the fuel each department uses. The
flowmeters were calibrated for the average viscosity
of P40 diesel fuel oil @15°C.
The Arctic has a very fragile ecosystem, as such, the
mining company is very sensitive of this fact and has
installed insertion turbine meters on various fuel lines
to indicate fuel leakage or valve malfunction. These
flowmeters are interlocked with their existing automation
system.
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Mining for diamonds located in Canada’s
Northwest Territories. |
Hoffer insertion turbine flowmeters are also used to
de-water lakes, where the meters measure the volume
of water pumped from the lake. This is also a requirement
set by the environmental authorities.
A requirement at the site is for all fuel flow systems
to be corrected to 15°C to match the correction
on incoming fuel deliveries. This necessitated electronic
flow computers that can perform these corrections which
Hoffer was able to supply. Our flow computers were integrated,
with additional equipment provided by Conflow, to provide
data acquisition and printing capabilities. The Hoffer
flow computers provided CSA and Canadian Weights and
Measures approvals.
Thanks to Conflow Technologies for a great job supplying
the customer with solutions to their multiple flow measurement
applications. |
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