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Efficient Open Pit Mine Drainage

Pexgol Pipe Installation for Open Pit Mine Drainage.

Case Study Nº

108

Customer

BHP Escondida Mine
Chile

|

2022

Working Conditions

Fluid: industrial water | Ambient temperature: 5° to 20°C / 41° to 68°F

Pexgol Pipes

Pexgol 225 mm (8”), class 15

Application

Open pit mine drainage

Lenght

200 m / 656 ft

Categories

Pexgol Pipe Installation for Open Pit Mine Drainage

The Challenge

BHP at its Escondida mining unit needed to drain water from inside its open pit mine to the outside. The client used to use conventional HDPE pipes in 12-meter strips in its operations, which requires long installation times, joints and associated resources.

Pexgol Solution

The client decided to replace its conventional HDPE pipes with Pexgol, which could be supplied in long sections (200 m), which allowed and facilitated installation. Likewise, Pexgol allowed the use of fewer joints for the total section.

An unwinding time of 200 meters was calculated, in 40 minutes set at the end point. The same amount of meters in pipes with strips of 12 meters, they achieved it in 14 days, that is, 20,160 minutes.

Performance

Tubería HDPE= 200 m / 20160 min = 0,6 m/hr
Tubería Pexgol= 200 m / 40 min = 300 m/hr

Pexgol performance 504 times more efficient.

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