IN-PIT CRUSHING & CONVEYING
mine plan. BEUMER’ s study required re-engineering PFS pit designs, mining phases, and waste-dump geometries to accommodate crusher pads, conveyor corridors, and waste-dump lift sequencing. The production schedule was also reshaped to minimise crusher and conveyor relocations, which is one of the most important levers for improving IPCC economics. These adjustments are only feasible when made early, before mine plans become locked in by downstream engineering.”
As BEUMER continues to engage in earlystage project phases, the company sees a clear trend emerging. Mining companies are increasingly seeking vendor-neutral, technically rigorous guidance on haulage strategy. Guidance that integrates mine planning, equipment selection, and longterm economic modelling.
He concludes:“ In an industry where haulage can define both cost structure and environmental footprint for decades, early-stage haulage engineering is no longer optional. It creates a competitive advantage – one that BEUMER is committed to helping its customers fully realise and leverage.”
Virta on how the RRC enhances conveyor efficiency in IPCC
Greater haulage distances, higher tonnages and more challenging terrain are increasing the demands on IPCC conveying to plants and waste facilities. With remote locations and the ongoing difficulty of staffing haultruck fleets, these pressures are making conveyor haulage increasingly attractive.
A step-change in IPCC conveying has arrived in the form of Rail-Running Belt Conveyors TM( RRCs), according to OEM Virta Inc. Martin Lurie, Global Director, Rail- Running Conveyors at Virta told IM that its first production system has been carrying ore at up to 5,000 t / h since early 2026.“ Virta- with five offices across the globe- is a leader in high-power overland conveyors, with 29 gearless drive motors installed over the last 15 years in systems ranging from South America to Mongolia, Tibet and Indonesia.”
He says Virta designed the first RRC production system as an upgrade to a relocated IPCC conveyor at a Zambian copper mine owned and operated by a topten copper producer. The mining company is known for selectively adopting innovations that can materially improve project economics. In this case, the owner’ s project team helped bring the RRC technology to maturity through close collaboration with Virta and the University of Newcastle( Australia). Virta is the exclusive licensee of the University’ s patents everywhere except China.
The RRC section spans 3.25 km of the
76 conveyor’ s 3.5 km overall length. Owing to the RRC’ s high curvability, the layout eliminated two intermediate transfer points and avoided the need for two additional conveyor flights that conventional conveying would have required.
Lurie:“ The Zambian installation has also demonstrated a second key feature of the RRC technology: unmatched energy efficiency for bulk haulage. Power measurements on the production system indicate total frictional losses for the RRC section of under 0.015 kWh / tkm, closely matching design expectations.”
Virta reports that losses along the RRC section are about one-sixth of those in the idler-supported sections at the tail and head. Because friction accounts for most power demand and belt tension on conveyors not dominated by lift, lower losses translate into a cascade of benefits, including lower installed power, lighter belts, reduced earthworks and civils, and smaller electrical supply requirements.
Part of the Virta RRC installation at a Zambia copper mine
The RRC’ s circulating carriages also enable automated bearing-condition monitoring and hands-off carriage exchange in a maintenance house located at one of the carriage turnaround loops. This approach avoids the safety exposure associated with conventional conveyors, where workers must replace idlers at multiple locations along an overland route. Bearing condition-monitoring is by means of a bespoke sensing and signal-processing system developed at the University of Birmingham( UK).
“ Together, these factors are estimated to deliver OPEX savings of 20 % to 80 % versus conventional conveyors, along with substantial as-installed CAPEX reductions for mining overland conveyor installations. The high curvability and steep inclines that RRC systems can accommodate also open up new conveyor applications for hauling from open-pit and underground mines.”
At The Electric Mine 2026 conference in Lisbon, May 5-7, 2026, Martin Lurie of Virta and Dr Craig Wheeler of the University of Newcastle will report on the Zambian system’ s performance and key design parameters.
Solving bottleneck at S11D with Metso FIT TM station technology
Ricardo Takeda, Commercial Director Mining at Metso, told IM last year that three crushing stations were designed, manufactured and delivered by the company in nine months, with the mission of optimising the operation of the so-called fifth crushing plant at Vale’ s S11D site, in Pará. Metso has now released some additional details about the project.
Takeda:“ The three FIT TM stations are effectively very large modularised secondary crushing plants to enable a better control of the particle size distribution of the material coming from the primary mining system ABON sizers. These plants sit between the three mining systems and the main long distance overland conveyor. They have recently been commissioned and are running – each station contains one large Metso GP500 Nordberg ® cone. With our FIT TM station we were selected as we could engineer a very modularised and compact solution to allow their positioning in a relatively tight space. Our cones are able to supply a very consistent particle size to the conveyor whereas in the past there has often been larger slabs of material reaching the conveyor which can be more difficult to handle.”
In more detail, Vale’ s S11D faced a critical bottleneck in the so-called fifth crushing operation, a strategic stage that feeds the following phases of processing. The operation, consisting of three primary crushing fronts, suffered from unscheduled stops on the conveyor belts, which add up to more than 12 km in length.
The problem was in the granulometry; it was necessary to reduce the top size from 450 mm to 150 mm. This adaptation would avoid tears in the belts and would give greater flexibility to carry out differentiated blends in the production of iron ore. In addition, the solution needed to respect a layout restriction and be implemented during the scheduled annual shutdown, with a maximum period of 90 days for activation.“ We are looking for projects that are increasingly safer, faster to implement and efficient. This project has everything to do with that: we were able to assemble about 1,200 tons of structures in just 94 days, a fast, efficient installation that added value to the operation,” says Anderson Gomes, Vale’ s General Manager of Implementation.
To meet these requirements, Vale chose Metso FIT TM station technology – a modular, ready-to-install solution that reduces risk, deployment time and ensures quality. Three new modular crushing stations were designed and delivered, creating an intermediate step between the existing primary and secondary crushing. The entire process – design, procurement,
International Mining | APRIL 2026