Location : Cape Preston, Western Australia
An Iron project at Cape Preston, located about 100 kilometres southwest of Karratha in Western Australia’s Pilbara region is the largest mining and processing operation for magnetite in Australia.
Due to the hot weather that is common throughout the year in the Pilbara region, water that is stored in potable water tanks can often reach temperatures of 40 to 50 degrees. This is unacceptable for applications such drinking and eye wash stations. More appropriate temperatures would be between 15 and 20 degrees.
In this situation, an obvious solution would be to insulate the tank and install a constant chiller system to keep the water circulating. This would keep the temperature of the water within the acceptable limits. We would need to find a viable solution to achieve this.
The client originally approached us to obtain a quote for a standard pressure system, which we specified for them. However, the client also inquired if the pressure system could incorporate chillers and heat exchangers internally on-site.
One of the client’s primary concerns was getting the pipes installed on-site. They also wanted to know how the system would hold up under emergency conditions and whether it would still operate during times of standby.
We came up with a more unconventional solution. We reached out to chiller and heat exchange suppliers in order to find out how we could get the water temperature at the site down on short notice.
The pump system we manufactured worked by drawing water from the storage tank that fed the site. The water then travelled from the pumps and through the heat exchangers that had been equipped with a cold water loop. The end result was perfectly chilled water supplied throughout the buildings at the site.
Rather than putting everything together on-site, we fine-tuned everything at the factory to keep the additional work necessary at the site to a minimum. The complete package was commissioned in-house to ensure that everything was fully operational before it was even delivered to the site.
Ultimately, we were able to take the challenge of designing the system off of the client. This gave us the opportunity to devise a complete solution that was much easier to install than what the client had in mind, while still operating according to their specifications. The end result was a system that could get the water down from 48 degrees to 8 degrees in 10 minutes
Initially, the project was held up due to some of the chiller components not being supplied on time. This was concerning as it could have resulted in the client being forced to liquidate the project, suffering the damages therein.
Once we received all of the necessary goods, we put in overtime to get the project finished as quickly as possible, without sacrificing on quality. In the end, we were able to conduct extensive factory testing before shipping the system to the job site and all just in time to meet the client’s requirements.
During this time, we also successfully delivered a 40ft containerised diesel electric fire pumpset and a 500kL Cyclone Region D-Rated circular liner tank within a short six-week time frame.
Do you have a tricky challenge facing you? Contact the team at Allied Pumps to discuss your pumping and treatment needs.
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