Metso collaborates with MPM in Chile to deliver a FIT™ Recrushing Plant

The project kicked off in 2021 when the customer approached us about a need for a new crushing and screening plant. The FIT Recrushing plant capacity had to be able to handle between 400 – 450 TPH. The application was to help the end customer to boost the SAG mill capacity in the main circuit.

The main challenge from MPM was the delivery time. The FIT Recrushing plant would process hard SAG pebble material and send the product back to the main circuit.  Therefore, the sooner the FIT Recrushing would be in operation, the sooner both MPM and the end producer would start to see the benefits.

There were two additional challenges: the plant was running with a material different from what was originally specified, and the number of steel media balls coming from the SAG mill was much higher than expected. Both were limiting the efficiency of the operation.

“The FIT™ station was designed for this pebble crushing application. With the modularity of being able to easily select the crushing and screening equipment required, and quick delivery and installation schedule, the customer was confident with what we recommended,” says Edis Nunes, Manager, Product & Sales Support.

The sustainability benefits were also of interest to the customer. With the FIT stations, due to the modular design, installation was expeditious and minimum welding was required, which helped the customer lower the emissions and create less waste on site.

Another distinguishing feature that the customer requested was to have the equipment painted a certain color to promote gender equality. With this, certain components of the plant painted in a pink color.

Training sessions were applied by Metso experts to MPM operational and key people to understand, plan and follow procedures and instructions applied for the operation and maintenance based on a fully descriptive manual.

The crushing plant operation during start-up phase faced challenges related to the processing of pebbles containing substantial amount of non-crushable material. The collaborative development of comprehensive studies and subsequent implementation of process adjustments by MPM and Metso were crucial to improve the plant availability and achieve the performance targets, while being able to minimize the delivery time.

To overcome these challenges, Metso and MPM have firmed up their commitment to deliver exceptional results and maintain a market-leading global presence.