Impact of a successful advanced process control solution on a Codelco Andina copper crushing plant

摘要

Ore size reduction is the primary stage in cooper concentrator process, which seeks to liberate the valuable species from the gangue. A big part of the costs of producing copper belongs to this stage, due to the energy consumed for obtaining a quality product for flotation. Crushing and grinding plants are the responsible for mineral size reduction, and as being energy-intensive, it is desirable to perform a better control, pushing the process to a better operating point, thusly improving overall efficiency.With this in mind, plant managers of the secondary-tertiary crushing phase of Codelco Andina required to deploy an advanced process control (APC) solution for their facility. Basically, they requested a “process watcher” that could help to meet their production plan for the plant, specified in terms of ore processed, size requirements for downstream process, energy efficiency, operational continuity and equipment protection. This development was made using Honeywell's Profit Controller, based on the robust multivariable predictive controller technology (RMPCT), a well-established industrial MPC solution, and it was led by APC specialists of Kairos Mining.Despite the fact that the implementation and the start-up of this APC was not an easy task, due the nature of the crushing circuit, the joint work with the process engineers in charge made it possible to achieve a better plant performance (reflected mainly in improved stability, and greater operational continuity), and also an excellent acceptance of the tool by operators.This paper aims to illustrate the key aspects in this development, as well as the flexibility of Profit ControllerTM that allows deploying APC strategies in diverse processes. When APC is used around 80 %, it has permitted to reach a better plant usage (around 80 %) and to obtain a total throughput close to 30 KTon/day. These results would not have been possible without achieving a total commitment and alignment between engineers and plant personnel. The above is the key in this deployment and allows replicating this experience in other crushing stages.