Antimony Roaster Debottlenecking

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WGA led on-site metallurgical support to debottleneck a newly commissioned antimony roasting/calcining plant in the Middle East. Working on a FIFO roster with the production team, WGA’s team of experienced operational metallurgists provided technical support to optimise unit operations, identify and resolve issues and prepare test work programs to successfully ramp up operations. WGA’s advanced data analytics capabilities ensured large data sets could be collated quickly, providing valuable information to the client and vendors to make informed decisions.

WGA identified current and future bottleneck areas in an antimony roasting/calcining plant in the Middle East, to ensure the plant could operate at its design targets. The antimony roaster/calciner was a newly commissioned merchant roasting and smelting facility procuring stibnite-bearing concentrate to produce high grade antimony metal and a rough gold doré.

The WGA team were site-based on a FIFO arrangement, working in the field with operators and plant engineers to coordinate effective metallurgical testing, to ensure each unit operation in the process was fit for purpose and performance optimised. WGA also provided technical support to the operations and maintenance teams in resolving issues. Preparation of test work programs to ramp up operations, required walking the operations team through the changes ensuring all personnel were aware of their specific roles and that tasks could be completed safely.

WGA personnel supervised the testing, data collection and ensured the correct samples were collected and analysed. At the completion of each test, data was collected from operations, the laboratory, and SCADA and together with the use of the advanced data analytics capabilities provided by WGA, ensured the large data set could be collated quickly, producing detailed technical reports.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, we continued our support from Adelaide, ensuring our team were available when required by site. WGA managed an engineering team from all over Australia ensuring the work was allocated to the correct resource and delivered on time to site. Remotely, they continued to provide technical support, working with operations and vendors to address and rectify issues. This included analysing live data for technical reports, writing scope of works and functional descriptions for new equipment, and updating PFDs and P&IDs.

WGA also continued investigating issues within the plant to determine the root cause of not meeting plant design criteria or plant availability and documenting the findings in technical reports.


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