HIGH PROFILE
team – to be very flexible to start
a new project or to end a project
when facing a dead end.
Questions of financing for
smaller investments can
sometimes be solved in less than
an afternoon. The culture in a
small private group, with flat
organisation, usually gives great
importance to the customer
which consequently opens the
door to a higher degree of
customisation. Still, in the end,
we see this more as a question of
attitude than of size. And more
than 55 years of existence we
like to think shows that we
behave in the correct way.
Q Is it fair to say a lot of your greatest
achievements have been in the industrial minerals
sector such as kaolin, sand and potash?
A Our roots are in the treatment of kaolin, feldspar
and silica sand, so yes, we can look back to many
great achievements in this sector worldwide. Over
the time, we built up our reputation also in other
business fields that we serve as main markets.
This includes now the ores & minerals business,
as well as environmental and recycling matters,
plus some niche applications. For each
application, we have our own specialists with first
class expertise, knowhow and application
background, who offer to our customers a
maximum of attention, support and assistance in
order to find the best solution. As the mineral
cycles change, it is important that we can position
ourselves as a multi-mineral player, so that we
can support different mineral cycles and not limit
our exposure to a single mineral type. So indeed,
potash has been a strong sector for us in recent
years, but many other ores & minerals such as
bauxite, phosphate or copper also kept us fairly
busy.
Q Aside from equipment itself, how important to
your mining business are your plant design and
engineering capabilities?
A Proper engineering is crucial for the trouble-free
and smooth operation of the processing plant. We
see ourselves not only as a supplier of equipment,
but also as supplier of unique and customised
process solutions that are technically and
economically optimised. Our engineering and
plant design activities comprise the process
evaluation, basic engineering and detailed
engineering up to the plant realisation. In our
mining business activity, we can either act as a
sole engineering service supplier or as an EPC
supplier. It primarily depends on the nature of the
48 International Mining | APRIL 2019
project and the definition of work package with
the customer.
Q Is your equipment offered with technology such
as real time sensor monitoring and automated
operation?
A Nowadays, most of our equipment range can be
equipped with sensors. Automation is a feature
which we already integrated several years ago. As
a result, all the processing plants which we sell on
turnkey basis are, for instance, fully automated.
With regard to monitoring, actually, we face the
reality that we could and would like to implement
more sensors or measurement devices in the
plants, but often customers step back due to cost
reasons. What we also see is that not all
autonomous and digitalisation innovations can
systematically apply in a mining processing
environment. Indeed, while the industry definitely
needs to integrate such innovative systems in
order to ease and improve some daily or regular
tasks, it does not necessarily suit all process
steps or process configurations. There again,
careful discussions and assessments together
with the customers are paramount for the right
definition of the requirements for sensors and
automation.
Q For your business, where are you
seeing the greatest demand growth
in mining and minerals?
A The overall business environment
for ores & minerals is improving
again, after several years of slow
down. Depending on the
geographical area, we experience
different dynamics. All raw
materials related to population
growth and infrastructure in
emerging countries, are clearly a
focus for us. That means a great
variety of mineral type and quality
levels to be reached out after
processing.
Q For your key mining product areas of hydrocylones,
annular distributors, attrition cells, screens and
classifiers, can you single out for each some ore
types where they have been most successfully
used and give a few real project examples?
A Hydrocycloning is an important and critical task
in a variety of mineral beneficiation applications,
particularly where a given cut size is to be
reached on an accurate and constant basis. In this
respect, we supplied with success multiple
hydrocyclone cluster types to Russia for a potash
ore processing project. Our patented and unique
attrition cell design has raised growing interest
within the community. The combination of an
optimised solid concentration coupled with a
strong attritioning power, has demonstrated
outstanding test results that have led to a series
of contracts, in the phosphate industry for
instance where surface preparation of the
material is critical to maximise the efficiency of
the further treatment steps.
Screens and classifiers have kept a good
momentum in a variety of fields, be it on bauxite
washing in Africa or for the processing of raw
silica sand into industrial silica sand, which is an
application field where we clearly hold a
leadership and global reputation. IM