Per: RICARDO NUNES MELO (VALE SA), SUELLEN CORDEIRO FERREIRA (VALE SA), MARIO FELICIO SIMAO FREITAS (VALE SA), JORGE PAULO ARCE (VALE SA), HELBERT FELIPE LINO (VALE SA), TOBIAS CABRAL CARVALHO MACHADO DE ANDRADE (VALE SA), EUGENIO TEIXEIRA DE OLIVEIRA (VALE SA)
Abstract:
The Salobo project, Vale S/A, located in Marabá, Carajás region, southeast of the state of Pará, has the largest copper mineral reserve, as well as being the largest copper producer in Brazil. The deposit has a great diversity of minerals in its composition, such as garnet, biotite, chalcopyrite, among others, with high levels of the metals of interest, but also high levels of deleterious that are directly present in the concentrate. This requires that the product be monitored to meet the quality specifications of the customers, both in terms of copper and deleterious content. For quality control and predictability, samples of the filtered concentrate in Salobo are taken. Initially, these samplings were carried out by collecting increments in the loader bucket while loading trucks. This required the presence of a person throughout the operation, presenting a very high risk of being run over. The purpose of this work is to present a new methodology to sample the filtered concentrate and reduce the risk of being run over. The solution found was to carry out chemical analyzes of the concentrate on the samples collected from the filter cakes to check moisture. After sampling campaigns to assess the correlation of the results in both methodologies, it was possible to change the procedure, reducing the operational risk of being run over, as well as increasing the productivity of truck loading.