Lake Vermont Coal Project

The Thiess Sedgman Joint Venture (TSJV) met a tight deadline to complete the design, construction and commissioning in 2008 of this 800 t/h coal handling and preparation plant (CHPP) to process coal from a Rangal measures resource.

The TSJV team was subsequently engaged to design, construct and commission a second 800 t/h CHPP on the same site in 2011. Despite a timeline two months shorter than similar plants, the initial project was completed on time and on budget. The outcome has redefined industry benchmarks and Lake Vermont is now widely acknowledged as world’s best practice. The second plant was delivered equally successfully.

Sedgman’s design team reduced the duration of critical path activities by maximising off-site fabrication. CHPP1 was designed to receive and handle 5.6 Mt/a of raw coal at a rate of up to 800 t/h and be capable of producing two products – a coking coal product and a pulverised coal injection (PCI) product. Included in the scope was a train load-out facility capable of dispatching coal from site at a rate of 4,000 t/h.

Sedgman designed the plant to be safe, easily maintainable and robust for its 20-year design life. The second CHPP incorporates a similar ROM and identical processing plant. The original stockpile handles all PCI coal and a subsequent stockpile handles all the coking coal.