Water treatment solutions company WEC Water recently secured and successfully completed a project for the design, manufacturing, delivery, installation supervision, and commissioning of the largest packaged filtered water treatment plant the company has built to date.

Designated for a large copper mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the plant has been designed to produce 680 m3/h of filtered water, to be used for service water for the mine.

The plant consists of two treatment trains each with a flocculation tank, three clarifiers, four multimedia filters and intermediate storage tanks.

WEC Water engineered an automated chemical dosing system designed to provide precision control of all chemical dosing, with feed water being sourced from the mine’s tailings dam, boreholes and surface water.

Besides being the largest packaged water treatment plant of its type that the company has delivered anywhere in Africa, WEC Water project manager Nigel Birchall points out that the project also required considerable logistical management of a total of 18 trucks.

“The plant itself is based on WEC’s standard filtered water treatment package plant with several customisations integrated into the basic design to meet the requirements of the client,” he explains.

The design and manufacturing phases of the project took seven months.

Once built and assembled in South Africa, the plant was packed and transported to site, which took an additional two months.

Birchall elaborates that it was critical to manage the entire logistical process, ensuring constant communications between the transport service provider and the logistics team to ensure that the company not only met the deadlines, but that every component reached its destination.

While this project was not undertaken for a new client, Birchall notes that WEC Water has completed a number of similar water and wastewater treatment projects for African mining operations in countries such as Botswana, Zimbabwe, Lesotho and others.