CiDRA Minerals Processing, working together with KROHNE in China and Australia, has secured a major project win at CITIC Pacific Mining’s Sino Iron Project in Australia. The massive Sino Iron project is being developed at Cape Preston, 100km south-west of Karratha in Western Australia’s Pilbara region. It is the largest magnetite mining and processing operation under construction in Australia.

CiDRA SONARtrac® systems will be installed on all magnetite slurry lines within the project and were chosen because of their non-intrusive, volumetric flow technology that is immune to the magnetic properties of magnetite. SONARtrac systems have been installed in more than 45 iron mines, most of which mine ore containing magnetite, in over seven countries worldwide.

CITIC Pacific Mining’s Sino Iron project is a world-class, large-scale magnetite iron ore project. It is bringing innovative, new mining processes to this country and is the first iron ore project to include large-scale downstream processing. The project will draw on the expertise and skills in magnetite processing from Chinese and other world leaders in this field, providing an excellent opportunity for Australia to benefit from exposure to international skills and processing technology. The Sino Iron Project will be a highly technical, value-adding operation requiring significant processing and transport infrastructure. The project has access to over two billion tonnes of magnetite ore and, when operational, will be one of the world’s largest mines.

CiDRA’s SONARtrac flow technology is a new class of industrial flowmeter, utilizing measurement principles that are distinct from all other flowmeter technologies operating in the mining industry. SONARtrac non-intrusive flow monitoring systems do not make contact with the slurry and can be removed and reinstalled without process interruption when it is necessary to replace the pipe. In addition, SONARtrac systems demonstrate a very stable output in the presence of a variety of ores, and demonstrate superior levels of performance. This passive, sonar-based technology enables measurements of single phase and multiphase fluids, as well as slurries, with the same level of accuracy and performance.