Bechtel to Employ CiDRA’s Sonar Flow Products

CiDRA Corporation (www.cidra.com) signed a deal to provide SONARtrac process monitoring systems to Bechtel Chile Ltd for a project at Minera Los Pelambres in Chile, the world’s fifth largest copper mine. The systems will provide volumetric flow measurements on critical slurry lines within the concentrator plant and work integrally within the Los Pelambres expansion project awarded to Bechtel.

The plant expansion is expected to increase production of copper by 13 percent by increasing the ore processing capacity of the concentrator plant from 120,000 to 144,000 tons per day. It involves increasing the power of the semiautogenous (SAG) mills from 17,000 to 20,000 HP and the ball mills from 9,500 to 10,500 HP. An additional ball mill of 10,500 HP is also being added. The engineering, procurement, and construction management for the project is being performed by Bechtel Chile, the same company that designed and constructed the original plant. The plant expansion is a $200 million project.

CiDRA’s SONARtrac is a nonintrusive flow monitoring system based on sonar technology, which enables measurements of single-phase and multiphase fluids, as well as slurries, with the same level of accuracy and performance.