BHP Olympic Dam engaged Outotec to design and construct the Slag Flotation Plant on the Olympic Dam process plant site to treat recovered slag product from the smelter to increase copper production and make the facility more economical.

JTMEC provided electrical construction engineering support services during the project for Outotec to ensure the project was constructed to BHP standards in the most efficient manner.

The Slag Floatation Plant included the addition of MCC starters and Variable Speed Drives, two banks of flotation cells, associated tanks and pumping infrastructure as well as field instrumentation, lighting and small power, control panels, cabling and cable support infrastructure.

The project construction was done in an operating section of the plant, so had operations interfaces, brownfields construction and tie-ins to be managed.

For this project JTMEC provided:

• Electrical design gap analysis, and construction design.
• Supervision and management of electrical construction team.
• Progress and HSE reporting.
• Design interface meetings with BHP project personnel.
• Construction support and technical queries.
• Shutdown planning and management.
• Testing and commissioning.

Over the five-month site construction period, there were many challenges to be managed upgrading an old brownfields plant. These included:

• Upgrading an old facility to meet current requirements of Australian Standards AS3000 and AS3007.
• Updating design drawings of the existing site to reflect changes that had been made over the years so that they would be accurate for the project.
• Inspection, review and testing of second-hand equipment supplied for the project.
• Modifying an existing MCC with new motor starters and cabling while maintaining operation of the MCC.
• Tying the plant control system into an operating communications network.

JTMEC’s expertise in construction engineering was beneficial to our client Outotec and the overall project through identifying the complex requirements of the project and working through challenges in a prioritised manner. In this way, we assisted in significant plant improvement and bringing the project construction in on schedule.