Weir Minerals has further strengthened its partnership with Tronox by entering into an exclusive arrangement to take ownership of the maintenance, asset management and optimisation of key assets at its Cooljarloo, Western Australia operation.

Under a tailored Total Asset Management Plan for the Tronox mine, Weir Minerals focused on managing 20 assets including slurry pumps, two floating dredges and a floating concentrator, which processes over 3,000 tonnes per hour of heavy mineral concentrate.

Weir Minerals successfully helped Tronox reduce maintenance costs by 10%, and unplanned maintenance by 30%. The miner is also now able to transition from a six-month shutdown cycle to an eight-month shutdown cycle, which will save the mine more than A$1 million on maintenance costs each year. This increased reliability is potentially worth more than A$1 million per year in additional productivity, according to Weir.

With a Total Asset Management Plan, customers have a dedicated Weir Minerals team who take responsibility for their assets – providing real-time innovation and improvements, backed by in-depth knowledge and experience.

“If other companies around the world are looking at this type of agreement, I'd really encourage them to explore it. At Tronox, we've only been touching the surface for a year now and we really see some huge benefits already,” said Ian Rennie, Tronox site director at Cooljarloo.

Source: www.global.weir