Khumani PROJECT

Lorbrand idlers, more than 90,000 rollers, for a greenfield 10 Mt/y iron ore mine in the Northern Cape, originally the Bruce, King and Mokaning (BKM) project.

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PROJECT REFERENCE

Assmang Khumani Iron Ore Mine

The Khumani Iron Ore Mine, still often called the BKM project after the three farms it sits on (Bruce, King and Mokaning), was Assmang's largest capital project of its era and DRA Global's first iron-ore execution. The first ore train was loaded in May 2008 and Phase 1 reached 10 Mt/y in April 2009, with export product railed 861 km to Saldanha Bay on the Orex line. The flowsheet is conveyor-intensive, and Lorbrand supplied the idlers, over 90,000 rollers.
Location Northern Cape, South Africa
Operator Assmang Limited
Lorbrand supply 2008
Industry Iron ore mining
assmang
BKM project assmang KEP2_loRes.jpg
PROJECT DATA

Scale of the operation.

23 km
Combined Conveyor Length
78
Number of Conveyors
10 Mt/y
Design Throughput
90,000+
Lorbrand Rollers
Khumani sits about 30 km south of Kathu in Kalahari country in the Northern Cape, operated by Assmang Limited, the African Rainbow Minerals / Assore venture. It produces lumpy and fines iron ore at roughly 64% Fe. Still widely called the BKM project after the three farms the orebody lies under, Bruce, King and Mokaning, it was Assmang's largest capital project of its era and DRA Global's first iron-ore mega-project, built for about R4 billion in Phase 1. The first ore train was loaded in May 2008, the mine reached its 10 Mt/y design rate in April 2009 and it was officially commissioned in August 2010.
The flowsheet is unusually conveyor-intensive. Run-of-mine ore from the Bruce and King primary and secondary crushers travels a 3 km, 3,500 t/h overland conveyor to an 18,000-tonne buffer stockpile at the Parson beneficiation plant, then through a long sequence of conveyor transfers across washing, screening, HPGR, jigging and tertiary crushing. That made conveyor-component reliability central to keeping export product flowing onto the 861 km Orex rail line to Saldanha Bay. Lorbrand supplied the idlers for that flowsheet, more than 90,000 rollers.
LORBRAND SCOPE

Engineered for Khumani.

Lorbrand supplied the idlers for Khumani's conveyor-intensive flowsheet: more than 90,000 rollers in continuous, high-throughput operation, from the 3 km, 3,500 t/h run-of-mine overland conveyor through the washing, screening, HPGR, jigging and tertiary-crushing transfers at the Parson beneficiation plant.
BKM project assmang KEP2_loRes.jpg
PROJECT OUTCOME

Khumani was one of the largest greenfield iron ore projects built in South Africa in the 2000s, delivered in roughly two years from "Kalahari sand" to first ore, ramping to 10 Mt/y by April 2009 and later expanded to 14–16 Mt/y. Across the 3 km ROM overland line and the plant's many conveyor transfers, component reliability was critical to meeting Transnet's export commitments via the 861 km Orex line to Saldanha Bay.

— Khumani · 2008
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