___________________________________________________________________________________________________ Sustainability
What’ s next for operators
The optimum sealing arrangement depends on factors including slurry concentration, pressure, shaft speed, water availability, and maintenance strategy, but many existing packed pumps present opportunities for retrofit where operating conditions are suitable.
It’ s important to bear in mind that not every site will see the same numbers. However, sealing strategy is a realistic place to reduce water use and maintenance exposure in abrasive slurry duties, without redesigning the whole circuit.
It is critical to consider where clean water is being used continuously for sealing, and whether the flow rate is justified by the duty. It is also worth addressing whether the current sealing arrangement drives frequent intrusive work, particularly heavy lifts or long interventions. Where upgrades can be implemented through retrofit, reliability improvements need not depend on major pump replacement projects.
Mining’ s decarbonization and resilience agenda is closely tied to how efficiently sites run their core processes. Whilst abrasive slurry duties will not always be the most visible part of that conversation, they sit on a critical path for tailings handling and can carry a large share of water use and maintenance risk.
For many operations, improving sealing performance is a practical step that supports lower clean-water demand, more predictable maintenance, and safer execution on production-critical assets. ■
Warren
Smith www. johncrane. com
Warren Smith is Global Mining Market Director at John Crane, where he draws on more than two decades of engineering and leadership experience to improve operational performance, strengthen strategic partnerships, and support customers across the global mining sector.
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