Increasing efficiencies with lower operating temperatures

Due to a lack of regularly scheduled maintenance, the cooling towers at a Western American gold mine were failing at a rapid rate. Due to the environment that the mine was situated in, there was a lot of dust and debris in the air. A build-up of these particles can cause the water treatment system to struggle to keep up and potentially shut down – meaning that the cooling towers were working overtime to keep temperatures at a safe level.

If the cooling towers shut down completely, then a part of the mining process would have to come to a halt. This could cost the mine a minimum of $1 million a day in profit losses. This meant that they were fully cognizant of the fact that they couldn’t afford for the towers to go down.

Once the mining company realized the severity of the situation, they found out that their supply chain couldn’t get the necessary parts to repair the towers without a huge delay. And getting a contractor scheduled to do the repairs would have delayed the project even further. With an eye on the time constraints, Aggreko came up with the solution of providing five of our 1,000-ton cooling towers to replace the failing cooling system.

Logistically, getting the towers to the site would be challenging as it was far out in Western America. This, coupled with extreme weather conditions, meant that Aggreko’s engineers had to be at their best. We were able to install the cooling towers without any disruption to the mining process. Meaning that they were able to continue operating 24/7 without interruption.

The temporary towers that Aggreko installed managed to immediately bring the temperature down in the mine by around 30 degrees. This allowed work to safely carry on in the mine and also allowed operations to continue far more efficiently. Due to the work that Aggreko carried out with this mine, other mines became aware of just how important proper cooling tower maintenance is. This meant that other mines were able to refocus on and prioritize maintenance issues that they may have overlooked in the past.

As an added bonus, our expert engineers were also able to help educate and answer the questions of the younger on-site engineers. Allowing us to pass on our expert knowledge to help ensure that regular maintenance and upkeep is carried out on the cooling towers, helping to prevent this type of issue in the future.