Pumping slurry to tailings facilities requires a solution that can move as the dam expands, making room for additional tailings. A mobile pumphouse is seen as ideally suited for this purpose, offering flexibility and the option of expansion and reconfiguration, as required.

Weir Minerals Africa’s mobile pumphouse is designed to be moved as required across a site, using its own specifically engineered, skid and jack-and-roll elements. The company highlights that its solution also avoids the cost of civil engineering that would be required for permanent on-site pump building.

The offering is part of the company’s engineered-to-order solutions, which aim to reduce the long-term total cost of ownership. The three-point Warman Multiflo pump mounting system allows the base and skid to act independently, designed to minimise the risk of misalignment between the pump and motor shaft during operation and relocation. The unit incorporates an integral gland water supply system and a separate electronic house for power control and remote communication.

The design of the mobile pumphouse is said to offer a new standard for tailings management applications. It provides customers with the tools and equipment required to rapidly reconfigure a pumping network by moving the pumphouse to other sections of the tailings pond or adding to the tailings line, if the increased distance requires more pressure. The flexible nature of the solution also helps to reduce initial capital expenditure costs.

The company’s solutions include Multiflo pump barges and floating pontoons mounted with Warman SHW submersible slurry pumps for extracting the fluid tailings. Its slurry pumps are particularly suited for boosting recovered tails from the pond, to drive the new tailings treatment process plant.