Water Transport on Crossroads

Transportation of water in more than 150 mining crossroads

Case Study Nº

26 Customer

Doña Inés de Collahuasi SCM, Collahuasi Mine

Chile

2012

Working Conditions

Extreme environmental temperatures (-25°C to 40°C), 10 bars.

Pexgol Pipes

Pexgol 160 mm, Class 15 (SDR 11).

Application

Water transport.

Lenght

4000 m.

The Challenge

Collahuasi Mine required to transport water that needed to cross mining crossroads, where the pipes where continuously exposed by the heavy trucks that circulate the area.

In the past, the client used HDPE pipes that created a bottleneck on the crossroads. To gain time they reinforced them with steel pipes that acted as steel protectors for the pipes. But still, the solution was very expensive.

Pexgol Solution

Since 2012 the client decided to replace all the water HDPE pipes with Pexgol. This change brought several benefits to the company, such us better productivity during the installation of the lines, better performance under harsh conditions, and thanks to its mechanical properties it improved the issues reducing the bottleneck on the crossroads.

The average installation time was reduced from 3-4 days to 4 hours per crossroad. On each one a Pexgol pipe was installed without a sand bed neither a steel protector. It only required a trench and a simple process to compact ground, using the natural field.