Grace under pressure--An innovative solution saves Xstrata Nickel from downtime troubles at its Strathcona mill

摘要

The last thing any resource industry operation can afford, especially in current market conditions, is process downtime. Unfortunately, the vast volumes of throughput and the speeds of processing seen at typical mills make the occasional glitch inevitable. This was the case at Xstrata's Strathcona mill in Onaping, Ontario. At Strathcona, nickel ore is ground first in a rod mill and then in a ball mill. Coarse ore is separated from fine material in a cyclopack - a circular arrangement of hydrocy-clones. Underflow from the cyclopack recycles to the ball mill for further grinding while nickel ore fines in the overflow proceed to further processing.