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Mining Top Heating Challenges

2020.11.04 Aggreko

Tackling the Mining Sector’s Top Heating Challenges at Every Stage of the Lifecycle

Mines are typically huge, complex sites that remain in operation for years on end.

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That means an enormous workforce. It means a broad range of equipment. It means highly specialized equipment, power and heating needs - each one specific to a different area of the site, the task at hand and time of year. Given all these moving parts, when it comes to temporary heat, where on earth should you start?

As we’ll see in a moment, there are some winterization tasks that apply to just about any mining site. However, your precise heating needs also depend on where you are in the lifecycle of your mine. Let’s take a closer look.

What role does heating play in the lifecycle of a mine?

There are six key stages in the lifecycle of a mine: exploration and feasibility studies, construction and commissioning, early production, full production, mine expansion, and closure and rehabilitation. At each of the stages, you will need specific forms of temporary heating and power for different purposes. Let’s summarize each of these in turn.

1. Exploration and feasibility studies

This is one of the most vital stages when it comes to the careful planning and design of your temporary heating system. On average, you can expect to cut your rework (and associated costs) by 15% by building proactive heat planning into this phase.

Potential mine sites are often located in remote areas, far from the grid. This means that, first of all, your only option for heating and power will likely be through temporary solutions - and you need to make sure you have sufficient amounts of both, to avoid delays when you get to work.

Secondly, any inefficiencies in your design, choice of fuel, etc. at this stage will quickly spiral into high costs over the coming months or even years. Meanwhile, getting it right from the outset can save you a lot of money. For example, by opting for 83%-efficient hydronic heat over 70% indirect heat, you could reduce your fuel consumption by 13%.

To keep your budget under control, you’ll need to conduct thorough site analyses, including heat calculations, fuel consumption figures, total cost of ownership (TCO) projections, and project-specific solutions based on industry best practices.

2. Construction and commissioning

At this stage, you’re getting the mine ready for its purpose. That involves undergoing civil works, building roads and worker accommodation, and constructing solutions for water and waste management. All of this requires significant power and, in many cases, heat.

For example, you will probably need comfort heating for camp accommodation, at least for part of the year. You will need to heat water, both potable and non-potable - which, given the remote location, may require a boiler bypass system with plate exchangers. During construction, you may also need to thaw frozen ground or prevent freezing altogether, all of which require careful, targeted, innovative uses of heat.

Since natural gas isn’t always available onsite, you will need to think carefully about whether to use electric, direct fired, indirect and/or hydronic heat to meet all these needs in the most streamlined, efficient and effective way possible.

3. Early production

A common challenge at this stage is that your mine is now ready to go, but you’re still waiting for utility power and/or permanent temperature control equipment. Here, temporary heating and power installations help bridge that gap so you don’t have to delay production or face costly downtime.

However, the temporary solutions you were using in earlier stages may not quite cut it here. You may need to scale up your interim heat and power to meet production demands, including supplying your mining equipment, providing comfort heating in mine production sites, and so on.

Here, again, choosing the right equipment and fuel will make all the difference in the long run. So make sure you take the time to discuss the relative benefits of electric, diesel, propane and natural gas/LNG with your provider. Which one works best for you will depend on your site requirements, desired temperature, emissions concerns, and a variety of other factors.

4. Full production

Even if you are able to access grid power and/or natural gas pipelines by the time you go into full production, you may need supplementary power and heating for specific activities or seasonal demands. For example, hydronic heat is perfectly suited to heat load testing for chillers.

If your mine is so remote that you never could connect to a permanent supply, you may instead want to look at setting up an onsite microgrid and battery power system to supply all your power and heating needs. These can be tailored to the precise needs and opportunities of your site. For example, in the past, we’ve even found ways to help natural gas drilling sites capture some of that gas and feed it into their own NG generators, making the site entirely fuel-independent.

What’s more, since running a mine is so expensive, temporary heating and power installations can actually keep your costs down by only supplying the power you need, and helping you to manage fuel usage. Standby temperature control is also a great option.

5. Mine expansion

When you’re ready to expand, you will need to think again about what this means for your heating and power demands. You may need to bring in additional, temporary power and heat during this second period of exploration, feasibility studies and construction. Especially if you want to get the ball rolling straight away, without waiting around to get additional power from the main utility grid.

6. Closure and rehabilitation

No mine can last forever and when the time comes to close things down, you’ll want to do this in the swiftest, most cost-effective way possible. That means working with a partner that will dismantle your on-site power plant and temperature control systems with minimum fees. It also means planning this process carefully to ensure that you still have comfort heating and other basic necessities covered for your team and equipment all through these final stages.

Winter Heating Tasks: A Checklist

With the colder months approaching, you need to take steps now to make sure your mining site can cope with these seasonal pressures. Here’s a 10-step winterization checklist to get you started.

  1. Identify all cables so that you will be able to locate them easily if they are covered by snowfall
  2. Elevate all fuel lines to prevent them from freezing over
  3. Arrange for snow removal to keep equipment accessible for maintenance and repairs
  4. Check your fuel type and supply to ensure you can power generators and equipment even at extremely low temperatures
  5. Plug in your generator for block heating and battery charging
  6. Organize freeze prevention for critical infrastructure, including key instrumentation, panels, pumps, shacks, hoardings, valves, vessels, hydraulics and mission-critical site locations
  7. Thaw frozen pipes or use freeze prevention methods in advance to prevent downtime
  8. Deploy temperature-sensitive heating for chemical vessels to improve safety - especially if you’re working with flammable liquids
  9. Use a boiler-bypass system with plate exchangers to heat drinking and non-potable water safely, even without a permanent boiler in place
  10. Incorporate ventilation into your heating planning for buildings, temporary structures and tents

Final thoughts: get your priorities in order

A fundamental mistake made by many mining operations is choosing temporary heating based solely on the rental rate, rather than a thorough analysis of the full lifecycle or operational design. This mismatch of priorities leads to all kinds of unforeseen and often severe safety breaches at sites.

A heating plan you can rely on needs to factor in the surrounding environment for where the heat source will be located. What else is situated close by that could be affected by this heat or the equipment used to generate it? Will workers be based close by, too? If so, will they be affected negatively by the heat or other emissions?

Next, think about who will actually handle the equipment at all stages in its use. Who will be responsible for setting up and starting up the equipment properly? Do you have a strategy for this? Do you have sufficient operational knowledge within your internal team to get the most out of the equipment and troubleshoot any problems that arise? What about your shutdown procedures?

Ultimately, the key to getting this right is to plan your heating strategy carefully in collaboration with the partners and vendors who will provide the equipment. Don’t be afraid to lean on their expertise - after all, they (presumably!) do this all the time and should have years of experience to draw from. It’s better to take a little more time now to fine-tune the strategy before implementation than to discover the problems once work is already well underway.

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