Goodyear belt handles over 245,000 tonnes at Grasberg

The Grasberg mine is the largest gold mine and the third largest copper mine in the world. It is located in the province of Papua in Indonesia, and has some 19,500 employees.
 In 1997 PT Freeport Indonesia finalised plans to expand Grasberg’s large open pit mine. The project required a crushing and conveying overburden handling system (OHS), to ensure copper and gold ore mining would continue as the pit expanded.
 Today, the open pit mine forms a mile-wide crater at the surface, and produces more than 67 million tonnes of ore annually. The harsh environment in Papua includes high rainfall, high altitude and an extremely remote location, posing a challenge for PT Freeport.
 Freeport’s engineering teams in both New Orleans and Tembagapura conducted in-depth research into the site’s unique operational difficulties, and determined that equipment component reliability would be key determinants of the OHS project’s success.
The major overburden handling system suppliers chosen by PT Freeport included ThyssenKrupp, FMC, Falk, Dodge Reliance, Sandvik/Prok and Goodyear Engineered Products.
Goodyear Engineered Products was selected as the best provider to manufacture and supply all the conveyor belts, splice kits, splice supervision and belt rip protection for the new overburden handling system.
This included the incline C201 conveyor, belted with 1600m self extinguishing Goodyear Flexsteel steel cord belts 84” ST5400 3/4” x 3/8” ARMA SBR.
The C201 conveyor was designed by ThyssenKrupp Materials Handling. It has a length of 792 metres, lift of 139 metres, speed of 3.8m/sec, motor power of 4 x 2100hp and capacity of 10,000tph.
Veyance, distributor of Goodyear Engineered Products, is one of the world’s largest conveyor belt manufacturers. It has facilities in Australia, Brazil, South Africa, Canada and USA and a new world class conveyor belt facility in Shandong, China.
In the Asia Pacific region, Veyance has 11 steel cord lines and will soon be commissioning the world’s largest Siempelkamp press in the first quarter of 2010.
Due to Freeport’s effective maintenance and the quality of Goodyear’s belt – protected by Sensor Guard belt rip protection – there was 9/16” top cover remaining in 2003. In that year, after carrying some 110 million tonnes and as the initial overburden handling system was completed, conveyor C201 was dismantled.
The mine saved considerable expense by reinstalling the Goodyear Flexsteel ST5400 ARMA SBR belt from C201 on the new overburden handling system, OHS-3.
The 1,600m conveyor belt removed from C201 was installed and spliced into 2,100m of new Goodyear Flexsteel ST5400 9/16” x 3/8” ARMA SBR belt using Goodyear Preform splice technology on C231 conveyor.
 “Goodyear Preform splice technology improves dynamic splice efficiency. It provides better cord location uniformity, eliminates cement usage on cables and is a proven product used in over 150 splices,” said Gus McLennan, technical manager, Veyance Technologies.
The company added that by September 2009, the belt – still running – had conveyed a further 135 million tonnes on C231 conveyor. Bill Dillon, from PT Freeport said, “We have been pleasantly surprised by the long life of the Goodyear ST5400 belt over the past decade on the two overburden handling systems.
“We estimate that the total savings have exceeded our expectations by a fair margin, conservatively more than a million dollars in the belt alone and much more in terms of continuity for both overburden removal and access to the main ore body underneath.”

Contact: www.goodyearep.com/