The company said that the offering has been designed to ensure the highest productivity, energy efficiency and maintainability. It noted that mining operations are impacted by declining head grades, meaning more material needs to be moved from greater depths to maintain concentrate production levels. This affects productivity and energy consumption, which directly correlates to the mine's profitability and sustainability.
Metso Outotec stated that the experience-driven IPCC planning services will allow the company to support customers with pre-defined study work packages that are in line with common study phases used throughout the industry. The team uses an integrated methodology to determine the optimal pit shape and mine schedule in alignment with system configurations, that utilise advanced engineering tools to increase the speed of project definition and certainty of outcome.
The key feature of the IPCC solution is the Foresight semi-mobile primary gyratory (SMPG) station, which features the Superior MKIII crusher and SmartStation for optimal processing. This is designed to allow material size control and reduced wear, downtime and plant height.
The company said that the Superior MKIII primary gyratory technology can provide up to 30% higher capacity on the same crusher size and 70% reduced downtime, while Energy Savings Idlers (ESI) allow up to 30% power savings. In addition, improved crusher access and plant area isolation allow better maintainability.
Services are a key part of the Metso Outotec IPCC solutions, and Life Cycle Services (LCS) for operational support are available for its IPCC solutions. The company has LCS across much of its portfolio, including LCS for filters that was launched earlier this month.
The IPCC offering also feature connected analytics that allows equipment to be better managed by staying connected at all times and by reducing unplanned downtime. In addition, it includes off-site and on-site assembly options.
Leif Berndt, director, IPCC at Metso Outotec, said: "With our team, technology, and services, we can combine and provide the industry's strongest building blocks to deliver successful in-pit crush and convey operations. We are excited to launch our solutions that cater in an exceptional way to our customers' operational and sustainability targets."
The IPCC solutions are part of Metso Outotec's Planet Positive offering, which was introduced in March this year.
Meanwhile, Metso Outotec and Germany-headquartered bulk material handling systems manufacturer FAM have signed a global non-exclusive cooperation agreement on the delivery of integrated end-to-end solutions for IPCC and tailings management plants to the mining industry.
Metso Outotec said that the combination of the companies' leading expertise in their respective fields will allow the parties to form the markets' "strongest offering for IPCC and tailings management plants". It added that mine electrification, reduction in power and water consumption as well as de-risking tailings disposal are common goals for the mining industry and Metso Outotec to improve sustainability, and that IPCC and tailings management plants cater for these requirements.
Markku Teräsvasara, president of the minerals business area at Metso Outotec, said: "Sustainability is a top priority for Metso Outotec. In addition to our investments to develop our IPCC and tailings management plant offering, we are pleased to be able to announce our cooperation with FAM. This will allow us to meet our customers' growing demand in such plants, where spreaders or conveyor bridges are required."
Torsten Gerlach, CEO of FAM, added: "FAM's leading technology in dry tail stacking systems and spreaders ties well in with Metso Outotec's hard rock crushing and minerals processing portfolio. Where end-to-end systems are required, we are glad teaming up with a strong partner."
