Rio Tinto with Matrikon win 'Minerals Processing Plant of the Year' award

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IBG - SA Instrumentation & Control Buyers' Guide

January 2007 News

Rio Tinto Coal Australia Hunter Valley Operations together with Matrikon won the 'Minerals Processing Plant of the Year' Award at the Australian Mining Prospect Awards for Innovation in Coal Prep Plant Control Optimisation.

Rio Tinto's Hunter Valley coal preparation plant processes 15 million tons of coal per year. Such high throughput means there is potential for significant economic and environmental gains by optimising the major control loops and reducing variation. However, high throughput is a double-edged sword. It also means any downtime required to make such plant modifications will incur significant costs in lost production.

Rio Tinto improved coal yield and reduced water use in its Hunter Valley coal prep plant using Matrikon's ProcessACT. Matrikon enabled Rio Tinto to simulate, test, prototype, and implement an advanced control strategy without any plant downtime.

"The technique we used for prototyping, then implementing the plant modifications removed almost all the risk that this kind of work normally entails. Without Matrikon's novel approach we would have had to think twice about whether to go ahead at all with these modifications to our critical plant," says Luke Dimech of Rio Tinto.

Australian Mining launched the Australian Mining Prospect Awards in 2006. These awards highlight companies that have shown innovation, excellent mine management skills and superior performance in a range of mining categories. Rio Tinto and Matrikon won the 'Minerals Processing Plant of the Year' Award, sponsored by ABB Australia.

"It is an honour to receive this prestigious award together with our client of some 20 years standing, Rio Tinto Hunter Valley Operations. These pragmatic advanced control strategies based on Matrikon software and technology have resulted in significant improvements to the coal preparation plant's performance, which is an excellent example of what can be achieved by working smarter and not harder. We look forward to a continued relationship with Rio Tinto Hunter Valley Operations so that we can continue to deliver business value through our solutions," says Sam Crisafulli, managing director, Matrikon.

For more information contact Gord Freiter, Matrikon, +1 780 448 1010 x4928, [email protected]

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Rio Tinto with Matrikon win 'Minerals Processing Plant of the Year' award

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