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Reliability pays off in diamonds – ZERO Failure at -40° C |
BHP Billiton, the world’s leading Mining Corporation relies on Yaskawa frequency inverters in their EKATI Diamond Mine, located 200 km south of the Arctic Circle. Commissioned in 1998, it is Canada’s first diamond mine, and up 10% of the world’s Triple Exquisite diamonds are extracted here. Access is by air only except for three months in the winter when an ice road is open for heavy transportation of critical supplies.
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Extreme conditions
Conditions are harsh; temperatures can drop to below -40° C for long periods during winter. The tough environment is demanding on people, machinery and logistics. Mining and processing are continuous round-the-clock operations, 365 days a year. A single day’s lost production is marked in terms of millions of dollars, so reliability is critical for maintaining a successful and profitable operation.
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That’s why BHP Billiton Diamonds chose Yaskawa VFD inverters. These inverters are renowned for their reliability and offer a Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) of 28 years. The 600 V class variable frequency inverters were supplied by Vector Drive Systems Inc., a Yaskawa integrator and distributor with many years’ experience in the mining sector.
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More than 200 Yaskawa 380 V inverters have already proven their reliability in harsh mining conditions. In 1994, inverters were installed in a large copper mine in Chile, and since then they have operated for over 5 million hours at an elevation of 3,000 metres without any failures.
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Reliability versus risk of downtime
Since the initial purchase of over 3900 kW of inverters in 1997, BHP Billiton Diamonds production has thrived, and process expansions through to 2004 have added over 2800 kW of Yaskawa G5 VFD inverters.
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In early 2006, the mine will install twin 600hp rated Yaskawa G5 modular VFDs in their primary roll-crushing/scrubbing area, which is at the start of the entire diamond recovery process.
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BHP Billiton’s decision to install Yaskawa inverters at the heart of the process once again reflects the company’s confidence in these products to perform with maximum reliability while mini-mising the risk of downtime.
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