Metallurgical Consultant

Mining and processing operations involve a variety of steps with particular attributes and requirements for efficiency. However, in some cases the conditions required to design and optimize any one of these steps may be counterproductive for the achievement of optimization in other due the lack of experience or enough metallurgical wisdom. A metallurgical consultant can warrant the appropriate conditions to be considered for each step.

The number of steps, their complexity and interactions in most mining and processing operations make trial and error attempts at the moment of achievement global optimization difficult and expensive. Nevertheless, the opinion given by the consultant can help in the modeling and design of the process offering perhaps a cost effective and rapid route to a successful outcome. Thus the consultant is typically involved in the critical steps in the mining and processing route by a detailed analysis of the pros and cons offered at the moment of taking decisions.

Nowadays, a metallurgical consultant trends to be a standard requirement for any metallurgical plant due to the value of product help up in the process. Also, is believed that he is commonly becoming a statutory requirement as well. A modern, instrumented concentrator generates a substantial quantity of data. The real task of a consultant is to use this data to provide accurate and credible information which helps to identify problems, to monitor sampling and instrument measurement quality, identify potentially valuable circuit modifications for production planning, and provide coherent reports of plant process performance.

Usually, the consultant can use different and complex criteria to analyze a particular situation. For example, he can employ a mathematical model and correlate several variables such as assays and streams in order to estimate the best conditions that allow obtaining a good final product. Also, he could require some preliminary estimates and then, judge the results so that the conclusion can be more specific. Thus a minor flowsheet change may require a major rethink and major reprogramming.

Most the time, consultants are well qualified to provide any advice on what to redesign, what to change, and how to analyze information via metallurgical audit. The main objective of such audit is to identify the parameters which maximize the generation of useful process information to be used in the improvements. But the data provided must be of quality because it is possible to obtain a large quantity of process data without providing very much useful information.

The consultant has an important role at the beginning of any metallurgical project because he could for example to select the appropriate tests required which give good information to be considered in the design. Other important task is related to forecast the production although there is a trade off between precision and cost. It is important to know the range of error and take the appropriate design safety factors so that the project can accomplish the standard required. The consultant is a leader and has the responsibility of looking in the right direction. If the results are different to the expectations, he must face the results and analyze the possible reasons that influenced the results. So, the decision given by a consultant is part of the natural process followed to improve a mineral processing plant.