GIW Expands Capacity for Producing Slurry Pumps and Parts in 2019

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In 2018, one of GIW’s major customers needed very large slurry pumps for their expanding operations, and they entrusted GIW with the challenge of meeting this need. GIW will be delivering three TBC 92 pumps in 2019. These will be the largest hydrotransport pumps in the Canadian oil sands in Alberta.

GIW has been supplying colossal pumps to the dredging industry for the past three decades. When a world renowned dredging contractor located in Belgium decided to build the world’s biggest cutter suction dredge (CSD), they contracted GIW to design, test, and build three monumental, double-walled dredge pumps. GIW successfully designed, assembled, hydro-tested, and delivered the DWD 2500 pumps to the dredge builder in the Netherlands. The CSD was launched in November 2018. After outfitting and trials, the CSD is expected to go into service in the latter half of 2019.

It is a proven fact that slurry pumps, in highly abrasive services, last longer when the gap between the suction liner and the impeller is regularly adjusted. In keeping with their tradition of innovation, GIW introduced the Remotely Adjusted Mechanical Suction Liner (RAMSL) in 2018. The RAMSL, used primarily with their flagship mill discharge MDX pump, allows the operator to safely make precise and more frequent nose gap adjustments remotely, at the push of a button. More frequent adjustments translate to longer wear life and more uptime for their customers.

To further support their customers, GIW has introduced Web-Shop. This e-marketplace platform allows customers to order replacement parts online and have them shipped to more than 20 countries worldwide. Web-Shop increases GIW’s efficiency in managing orders — facilitating greater support to their increasing customer base.

The expansion is part of GIW’s ongoing commitment to serve the mining market. GIW fully recognizes that the slurry pump business is all about being a reliable partner. Their customers rely on them to add value to their mining and dredging operations by providing technologically superior products, reliable parts supply, and sound technical support. This reduces the total cost of ownership of the equipment while increasing operational efficiencies for GIW customers.

Operators at a Chilean copper mine got to experience this partnership firsthand. Operators at a Chilean copper mine turned to GIW after years of dealing with poor performing mill pumps. These pumps required a costly mill outage every 800 hours. Leaders of the mine began looking for an alternate supplier that could help them achieve a reliable shutdown schedule, minimize expenses, and meet a high safety standard.

GIW responded by custom-designing an improved suction liner and impeller to be installed inside the existing competitor pump, providing improved hydraulics and wear life. During the initial run, the customer was astonished to see an “almost new” suction liner after first inspection at 1300 continuous hours. The customer was accustomed to failures at 800 hours with their old supplier.

The mine operators were so impressed they decided to replace the entire competitor pump along with 7 other pumps with complete GIW MDX-750s—the world’s largest mill pump.

The MDX-750s were equipped with GIW’s brand-new material technology called Endurasite. This innovative material is capable of resisting the effects of abrasion for extended periods. When applied to the MDX-750 high wear wet-end parts, this ultra-wear-resistant white-iron alloy vastly improves pump wear life. Thus, extending the time between shutdowns. In fact, the MDX cyclone feed pumps ran 4,000 hours between shutdowns with no operational interruptions.

As a result, annual shutdowns were cut in half, drastically improving the total cost of ownership with an estimated savings of $6 million USD per mill line. GIW’s innovative technology has taken the Chilean copper mine’s pumps from 800 to 4,000 hours of continuous operation.