Owing to its world leading copper production and lithium reserves, Chile is a major global minerals exporter. As one of Latin America’s top mining economies, responsible water resource management and enhanced pipeline security are becoming increasingly important in the region.
In this blog, Sales Engineer Rodrigo Salgado discusses pipeline leak detection, theft detection and batch tracking’s roles in overcoming these mining challenges to secure Chile’s mining future.
Water management
Water is used in the mining industry’s operational processes, from mineral processing, separation and extraction to the movement of ores across long distances in slurry pipelines.1 However, Chile is seen as one of the most water stressed countries in the world2 and the annual amount of water consumed by the Chilean mining industry could sustain 75% of the population’s needs.3
Chile’s ongoing development of desalination plants has provided some relief to the issue of water scarcity,4 however desalination is a costly process for water production. Reverse osmosis is one of the most common desalination methods and involves passing seawater over a membrane using high pressure to filter out the minerals and other contaminants, producing desalinated water (see Figure 1). However, this carries significant overheads due to desalination’s high energy consumption.5
Figure 1: A mining and slurry pipeline operation using reverse osmosis to create desalinated water
Responsible water management starts with mining companies prioritizing pipeline leak detection. In the context of Chile, where there is already a water supply imbalance, a mining water leak can damage the reputation of a mining company and impact future operations. Leak detection is also important because Chile is at high risk of geohazards which can damage pipeline integrity, such as earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions.6,7
Using Atmos Pipe’s statistical volume balance calculations, mining companies can detect onset as well as existing leaks to reduce the risk of leaking desalinated water or harmful pollutants into the environment.
For pipelines transporting slurry (a mix of liquids including water and dense solids), Atmos Batch can be used as a real time batch tracking solution that enables operators to know the head and tail location of every batch and support with draining and filling operations.
Another important aspect in the operation of concentrate pipelines is the transport of water batches to clean the pipelines and reduce the risk of clogging. Atmos Batch has provided safety and greater operational understanding to control rooms, optimizing the amount of water used and reducing the logistics for handling these water batches.
Currently, considering the different compositions and qualities of concentrates transported through the pipelines, work is being done to identify batches of different qualities and to track them correctly in real time to improve the operational performance of processing and refining plants.
Enhanced pipeline security
The increasing demand for minerals exported from Chile is also resulting in increased organized crime activity, with copper concentrate being a notable example of a product thieves are targeting.
In recent years, thieves in Chile have gone to extreme lengths to make away with copper, with one example involving a port heist where an organized crime group stole 13 containers of copper plates and thieves persistently targeting railroad transport.8,9 This has caused Chilean mining companies to reassess how they get copper cathodes and concentrate from point A to point B without compromising on security.
Pipelines remain the safest mode of transporting any product and the inclusion of a theft detection system made up of hardware, software and offline analysis by trained engineers can be an effective deterrent against organized crime activity, securing mining operations long into the future.
The power of three: pipeline leak detection, theft detection and batch tracking software
Water management and pipeline security are only two examples of the issues currently impacting Chilean mining companies. By adopting a pipeline solution comprising of leak and theft detection and batch tracking software, operators will be equipped to overcome a multitude of challenges and secure operations.
Leak detection Theft detection
References
4 https://www.slrconsulting.com/eur/insights/addressing-concerns-about-desalination-a-way-forward/
6 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13669877.2024.2387355
7 https://belonging.berkeley.edu/climatedisplacement/case-studies/chile
8 https://splash247.com/copper-heist-at-chilean-port/
9 https://www.wired.com/story/power-metal-green-economy-is-hungry-for-copper/