CRUSHING AND GRINDING

In-pit crushing: wave of the future?

In-pit crushing and conveying systems are being increasingly touted by OEMs and consultants. Miners remain sceptical,
however, mostly sticking to tried and tested truck and shovel setups. But the tide is ever so slowly turning toward the
new technique. AJMs Mike Foley weighs IPCC proponents plaudits against prevailing industry attitudes.

HE BENEFITS OF an IPCC system

revolve around operating costs. The
bill for fuel, labour, trucks, tyres and
carbon emissions can be reduced, markedly if
a fully mobile system is installed.
A rough industry standard says IPCCs
operating costs are typically 20%60% lower

than a truck and shovel system, with a fully

mobile IPCC system the most frugal.
Potential disadvantages of IPCC, often
cited by miners, revolve around availability.
Systems are linked sequentially, meaning
that downtime, both scheduled and unplanned,
can play havoc with availability. Truck and

(top of page and above) Bolidens Aitik copper mine, the largest in Europe, undertook an $865m expansion
program, incorporating a complete IPCC system from Sandvik. The miner said it doubled Aitiks production
of ore, from 18mtpa to 36mtpa, reduced cash costs from US$0.80/lb to US$0.43/lb and extended the mines
life to 2029. Sandvik supplied two complete semi-mobile crushing stations, which were commissioned in
2010. Each station has a gyratory crusher with an apron feeder generating a capacity of 8,000tph. The total
length of the conveyor system at Aitik is 7.3km, 3.5km of which is located in a tunnel leading from the
bottom of the pit to the surface. The conveyors are 2m wide with a speed of 4.8m per second.

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MAY / JUNE 2012

shovel systems, on the other hand, allow more

flexibility as they comprise discrete elements.
Also causing scepticism among miners
is IPCCs high start-up cost. Purchasing the
components used in a typical system is
expensive compared to a truck and shovel
operation.
A mine needs to buy a complete suite of
IPCC equipment upfront, to match the
expected maximum throughput of the mine.
Trucks, in comparison, can be added incrementally to match operational increases.
Other concerns include shutdowns, which
are required to move crushers and/or conveyors, availability of base load electricity supply
and IPCCs compatibility with irregularly
shaped pits.
Going back in time, IPCC techniques
gained momentum during the 1960s in Germanys brown coal mines, where they remain
popular today, using bucket wheel excavators.
Now the technique has spread beyond
brown coal to minerals using fixed, semimobile or fully mobile crushers and sizers
located in the pit.
Most Australian projects consider the
option of IPCC initially, but precious few
are prepared to take the plunge. Besides
Victorias brown coal miners, Rio Tinto uses
in-pit crushing at Clermont, where questions
remain about whether the system has fully
realised its potential.


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CRUSHING AND GRINDING

IPCC systems: fixed,
semi-mobile, fully mobile
Broadly speaking, a modern IPCC system
consists of crusher or sizer working inside
the pit, feeding conveyers. Once material
on the conveyor has cleared the pit, spreaders
and stackers are used for overburden
and ore, respectively.
The choice of fully mobile, semi-mobile or
fixed IPCC system is driven by the pit and
orebody geometry, rock hardness and the
production schedule.

Citic Pacific Mining is in the middle of

installing four 5,100tph semi-mobile gyratory
in-pit crushers from ThyssenKrupp at its Sino
Iron project. The crushers can be uncoupled
and relocated during operations.
Uptake of IPCC in mining regions such as
Australia and Canada has been slow, with only
a handful of the worlds 200 systems installed.
Growth regions for IPCC are South America,
China and increasingly, Asia.
Several historical failures in Australia have
contributed to a lack of confidence in the
technique. Consultants, engineers and
manufacturers say poor mine planning is the
main cause.
One of Australias first IPCC systems was
installed in the 1970s at a West Australian
bauxite operation, when the industry was still
using relatively low-capacity jaw crushers.
Doug Turnbull, principal mining engineer
for Sandvik Mining Systems, said the mine
plan was unsuited to the application.
The crusher crushed, the conveyors
conveyed and the spreaders disposed of the
material as they should. But there was a pod
nature of the ore body that didnt suit the
mine plan. he said.
In the 1990s a Pilbara iron ore miner used
an IPCC system for overburden. Like the
bauxite experience, it did not run to plan,
perhaps due to a lack of enthusiasm for the
new technology by its operators.
Australias best known fully mobile system
was at the Goonyella Riverside mine. AJM
understands that while the system was sidelined, for a range of reasons, again the crucial
factor was that the mine plan did not suit
the equipment or its capacity. It has been
parked-up since September 2009.
More recently in the Pilbara, a fully mobile
system was deployed for overburden. Unfortunately, minesite operators did not adhere to the

AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF MINING

mine plan designed for the IPCC and since

2010, it too has been sitting idle.
The most recent, and keenly watched, IPCC
installation in Australia is at Clermont. While
it was originally intended the system would
ultimately become fully mobile following an
initial period of semi-mobile IPCC, uncertainty
surrounds the timetable for the transition.
Turnbull has over 30 years experience
in mining, mostly from an operational background. He said that while Australian miners
recognise the potential benefits of IPCC,
the groundwork needed to reap success has
not been undertaken Down Under.
To date, the industry has [used IPCC]
without taking the baby steps to get there,
good mine planning, mine planning to suit the
equipment type, more good mine planning and
lastly, good mine planning, he explained.
CONTINUES NEXT PAGE

Fully mobile, also called truckless, systems

use a crusher or sizer mounted on tracks.
The crusher/sizer follows the workface
and is fed by shovel. This method is suited
to soft rock mining with sizers as heavier
jaw or gyratory crushers are often required
for hard rock. The capacity of the sizer is
limited to shovel productivity, which is
capped at about 7,000tph.
Semi-mobile crushers are relocatable inside
roughly a two week period. In-pit crushers
are located as close as practicable to the
workface and fed by haul trucks. The truck
fleet needs to be sized relative to the
distance from the working face, with the
aim of keeping the number of vehicles down.
The throughput limit of semi-mobile and
fixed systems is upwards of 12,000tph.
Fixed IPCC systems obviously stand where
they are erected. This means heavier, more
productive crushers can be used, but the
reliance on haul trucks increases compared
to semi-mobile systems. Crushing units
can be used in tandem, feeding a single
conveyor that carries material out of the
pit from several conveyors at once.

The Mae Moh coal mine in Thailand, currently employs a semi-mobile IPCC system from Sandvik, which uses
about 60 haul trucks to deliver overburden from diggers to the crushers. It employs four semi-mobile crushers, each with 5,500tph capacity. Together they feed two conveyor systems, each comprised of 14 wide conveyors, 1800mm in width, capable of moving 11,000tph of overburden.

MAY / JUNE 2012

47

CRUSHING AND GRINDING

Doug Turnbull of Sandvik

Operational parameters
of IPCC
An IPCC system, using a gyratory crusher with
a 10,000tph throughput and conveyor roughly
5km in length, equivalent to a 25km truck cycle,
costs approximately $90m. However, some
engineers say this figure is too ambitious,
putting the cost at about $180m.
Total initial capital cost of an IPCC system is
usually estimated to be about 25% more than
an equivalent truck and shovel operation.
Operating cost of an IPCC system is typically
25% less than truck and shovel for a fixed IPCC
system, 40% less for semi-mobile IPCC and
up to 60% less for fully-mobile IPCC.
The cost of base load electricity in Australia
is about one quarter the cost of diesel. Most
consultants say this is the cut-off point where
the cost of power for IPCC becomes cheaper
than an equivalent truck and shovel operation.
The 10,000tph system detailed above would
require about 15MW of power, according to
some sources. Others claim it would require
up to 30MW.
Most industry players say the average life
expectancy for the components of an IPCC
system is 150,000 hours or more. Haul trucks
have a life of about 60,000 hours.
Fully mobile crushing stations generally use
sizers, double roll or hybrid crushers, which
traditionally are suited to soft rock.
Semi-mobile and fixed systems can use any
type of crusher, jaw, gyratory, sizer and hybrid.

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MAY / JUNE 2012

FROM PREVIOUS PAGE

Sinclair Knight Merz undertook the IPCC

study for Rio Tintos Clermont, beginning at
the prefeasibility stage and seeing it through to
completion of construction in 2009. Since
then, its involvement in IPCC has gone global.
Group manager strategy mining and metals, Ron Spence and global manager integrated
mining systems, David Morrison, said SKM
has undertaken many studies of IPCC in Australia, but besides Clermont, none has been
implemented as yet.
However, the company recently won a
$76m contract for engineering the in-pit crushing and conveying system at Vales 90mtpa
S11D iron ore project. Morrison said there was
more than just conservatism holding back the
spread of IPCC in Australia.
What we come up against is pragmatism,
he said. There are not too many operations
where you can demonstrate an effective solution with an IPCC system. If you need flexibility in the pit, for whatever reason, either for
blending of ore or to be able to respond to

things like market changes or even pit flooding, then an IPCC system doesnt allow it.
If you are looking at an operation that
needs to be flexible for any reason, you will
also be looking at spending a lot of money to
reconfigure if you ever want to change anything. So it is not conservatism as much as
pragmatism that prevents the implementation
of an IPCC system.
Morrison said there are some situations
when IPCC makes a lot of sense. With Vales
S11D, it is an enormous iron ore deposit
with the appearance of a brown coal mine.
It makes sense to use a system that is similar
to the brown coal configuration as a part of
the mining method. But it is not a solution
for every mine.
Spence and Morrison said Clermont has a
combination of factors making it suited to
IPCC. High labour costs, low power costs
and a relatively deep, large and compact ore
body with a lot of overburden, which lends
itself readily to a mechanised approach to
overburden removal.

CONTINUES PAGE 50

If you need flexibility in the pit, for whatever reason

... then an IPCC system doesnt allow it.
David Morrison of SKM

The crusher crushed, the conveyors conveyed and

the spreaders disposed of the material as they
should. But there was a pod nature of the ore body
that didnt suit the mine plan.

FLSmidths Triple Track Mobile Sizer (TTMS) is used for

overburden removal. It is fed by a shovel that dumps into one
of the two hoppers. In the bottom of each hopper an apron
feeder moves the overburden into the sizer unit. Counterrotating teeth in the sizer break the overburden into the
specified lump size. As the material is sized, it drops onto a
discharge conveyor under the sizer, which carries the now
sized material to an elevating conveyor. FLSmidth says the
system is unique, in that it was designed to be completely
mobile and move under load. The TTMS has a triangular suspension undercarriage to provide an inherently stable threepoint suspension. FLSmidth has supplied IPCC equipment to
major operations, including PT Adaros Tutupan coal mine in
Indonesia and Goldcorps Peasquito gold mine in Mexico.

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CRUSHING AND GRINDING

ThyssenKrupp IPCC system.

SKM uses Victorias brown coal mining

operations to demonstrate a mobile system
to potential clients. The Loy Yang system
is a good benchmark for keeping the operation
very, very simple and free of personnel,
said Morrison.
The only difference between what Vale
is proposing and the Loy Yang operation is
at the mine face where a shovel feeds the
crusher [bucketwheels replace shovels in
brown coal mines]. The rest of the operation,

IPCC breaking news

SKM recently won a $74m implementation
contract for engineering the in-pit crushing
and conveying system at Vales 90mtpa
S11D iron ore project. S11D is located in
Cana dos Carajs in the Para region of Brazil
and is expected to cost around $19.5bn. SKM
will provide engineering for the IPCC system,
procurement support, project execution
planning and project management services.
Citic Pacific Mining has installed two of four
ThyssenKrupp semi-mobile 5,100tph gyratory
in-pit crushers at its Sino Iron project. The
crushers can be uncoupled and relocated
during operations.
According to Citic Pacific construction and
installation of the in-pit crusher, conveyor
and coarse ore stockpile are nearly complete.
Once final installation has been completed
and power distribution systems are energised,
the conveyor and stockpile equipment will
undergo individual testing.

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MAY / JUNE 2012

The key driver in my mind, and the biggest impediment

to IPCC, is operations managers [attitudes].
Alan Cooper of Snowden

shifting conveyors and shuffling head arrangements, are common to the two systems. SKM
uses Loy Yang as a benchmark to illustrate
how to operate the pit.
Morrison stressed that while he does not
think IPCC is appropriate for every mine,
there are certainly situations when it makes
a lot of sense.
Vale is seeking to adjust the industrial
paradigm. It is a 30 year operation and they
were looking at keeping the operating cost low
for the entire mine life. Their view is that in
20 years time, labour will be much more
expensive in Brazil than it is now.
Alan Cooper, principal consultant for
Snowden, is a proponent for the use of IPCC
in Australia. He said conservatism is preventing the expansion of what should be a popular
technique.

High start-up costs arent the key driver

in my mind. The miners have got the money.
The key driver in my mind, and the biggest
impediment to IPCC, is operations managers
[attitudes].
Most operations managers have been
using trucks for years and know them backwards. Trucks are very flexible and if you
make a mistake, you just buy more trucks.
It is tolerant to poor planning and poor planning is pretty common.
If the manager gets paid the same amount
for doing what he has been doing for the last
20 years or taking a risk, what is he going to
do? He is going to do everything he can to
find a reason why IPCC wont work The
one problem [operations managers] throw at
you time and time again is flexibility.
CONTINUES PAGE 52

They have a high degree of confidence in

the ore body, whereas in Australia you have
a massive rush to get into production ...
Scott McEwing of SRK

FROM PAGE 48

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CRUSHING AND GRINDING

FROM PAGE 50

Consultant with SRK, Scott McEwing, said

IPCC is accepted more widely internationally
than in Australia. He highlighted the shorter
term approach to returning investment as a
crucial hurdle for Australian acceptance of
IPCC systems.
In projects we are involved in [in Australia],
we go through a capital reduction phase,
removing the surplus from the project, trying to
get it optimised for rapid payback, he said.
In overseas mines, like [Kennecotts]
Bingham Canyon copper mine, they take a different approach to investing in the technology.
I think it is probably to do with the fact
that those companies are very well established.
They have a high degree of confidence in the
ore body, whereas in Australia you have a
massive rush to get into production on the
wave of the commodity boom.
Independent IPCC consultant, Phil Morriss,
said given the extended life cycle of an IPCC
system compared to haul trucks (see box), the
cost of ownership works out to be the same on
a long term basis.
On an operating cost basis it is normally
much cheaper than truck and shovel. You
have the benefits, compared to volatile fuel
prices, of the prices you can get for long term
electricity supply and you are not exposed to
tyre availability and cost and IPCC has lower
labour risk, he said.
Turnbull said while some directors, engineers and mine planners are warming to
IPCC, operational managers remain hesitant.
That is the real crux of the matter in Australia. Operations managers want the ability
to ignore the mine planners, he said.
Everyone knows, from the managing
director down to lowest mine planning
engineers on the site what truck and shovels
are capable of. We have all been brought up
on that method.

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MAY / JUNE 2012

(above) Sandvik spreader attached to an IPCC system. (bottom of page) Clermonts IPCC system in action.

SKM uses Loy Yang as a benchmark to illustrate

how to operate the pit.

SKMs Ron Spence

Everybody can critically question when

they see a number that is not quite right on
trucks but the same cannot be said for IPCC,
due simply to lack of exposure and experience
within the Australian mining industry.
A widely recognised rule of thumb for consultants and engineers looking at IPCC is the
25 minute truck cycle. Under this guideline, it
is said that when the cycle on a proposed mine
exceeds 25 minutes, IPCC becomes viable.
However, everyone canvassed for this article agrees the reality is more nuanced than that
rule suggests.
Morriss said the viability of an IPCC system is dependent on truck cycle time and also
on the ratio between power and fuel cost.

What we all see is there is little or no

improvement in dollar per tonne as you
increase truck sizes anymore, because the
deadweight of the truck is such a high
percentage of the load. The weight you move
around is the weight of the equipment and
not the product, he said.
The benefit of IPCC is the conveyors.
Their total gross weight is only typically
10-15% of what is being carried as opposed
to 50% with a truck. That is why IPCC is
more energy efficient, so it is highly
dependent on what the cost of generating
that energy is.


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CRUSHING AND GRINDING

As truck tyres and diesel get more expensive, the cutover between a generally accepted
25 minute and a 15 minute cycle narrows.
I think with current oil prices and the
availability of relatively cheap power in a
variety of locations, that number is entirely
variable from one continent to another.
25 minutes might be a good number in
Australia but 15 minutes might be a good
number in South America.
Contrary to prevalent attitudes, Morrison
said that in a very deep pit, it is almost
impossible to make an IPCC system work

Turnbull said. However, he argued the situation was not overwhelming.

I go back to basic engineering, which is
what we had before software programs made
mine planning easier, he said. It is not insurmountable. One problem is many graduates
know how to press a button on a computer but
dont know what it does in the background.
Another problem is that IPCC is seen as a
niche speciality or curiosity at university
teaching level at this point in time.
Morriss agreed that a mine planning system
targeted to IPCC would be beneficial. The
selective mining unit size, which is typically
the block model size for a truck shovel opera-

The benefit of IPCC is the conveyors. Their total

gross weight is only typically 10-15% of what is
being carried as opposed to 50% with a truck.

Independent consultant Phil Morriss

successfully over the long term. Many operators look at the concept and where the pit
configuration is suitable, it is much cheaper
to shift ore vertically with electric power on
conveyors than it is to use diesel power in
haul trucks, he explained.
There is about a three to one ratio in the
cost of energy. But the problem is that when
you put a conveyor belt in the pit, the pit wall
becomes a fixed wall that you cant move.
Or if you do move it, it costs a lot of money
to reconfigure everything.
What happens with places like Escondida,
where they leapfrog from one side of the pit to
the other, the conveyor systems sit in place for
a fairly long period of time, maybe seven to
nine years; then when it comes time to move
it, they actually spend many millions of dollars rebuilding or even recreating everything
on the other side of the pit.
I am yet to see any real economics on the
really big pits. Where there is a real advantage
of IPCC is with strip mines, in which you are
not hauling from a deep pit, but it does involve
hauling a long distance.
So in that circumstance the 25 minute
truck return cycle time, beyond which an
IPCC shows an economic benefit, remains
relevant. But only if you dont have a lot of
horizontal change. Anything up to 100m
change in horizon is fine, but once you get
past that it is really difficult to make the pit
work. There are always operational constraints
or geotechnical imperatives that need to be
recognised and accounted for.
A lack of mine planning software suitable
to IPCC may be impeding its implementation,

AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF MINING

tion, tends to generate near circular phases and

ultimate pits. He said IPCC generally needs
more linear intermediate phasing in pits.
Then you can compare the NPV of an
IPCC system with the NPV of a trucking
system. Technically that is the right way to
evaluate whether your IPCC system will
generate value for you.
Morriss said studies of larger projects he
has been involved with show IPCC can be
incorporated for minimal reduction in a NPV.
In line with the sentiments of other IPCC
consultants, the engineers at SKM see Queenslands developing coal regions as the brightest
prospect for IPCC in Australia. On the other
hand, the lack of an electricity grid and high
costs for base load power in the Pilbara are
impediments, they said.
There will be a period when IPCC systems
start to become very common, Morrison said.
Not so much in the Bowen basin, but when
we start working up to the Surat and Galilee
basins we start to look at it very seriously.
All the mines proposed in those regions
are enormous and the intensity of the truck
fleet needed there will make them almost
impossible to operate. All those operators
are looking very seriously at how they can use
conveyors in the pit to try and mitigate their
traffic management problems.
When you are looking at 5060mtpa as
the production capacity, you are talking about
fleets of about 300500 trucks. Beyond the
traffic congestion problem, when you put
300 trucks in the pit you are talking about
using 2,500 people by the time you recruit
operators and diesel fitters.

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MAY / JUNE 2012

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