West Angeles Fuel Hub was built to provide the West Angeles Iron Ore Mine with a more reliable readily available source of Diesel for its Heavy vehicle and Light vehicle operations. Prior to its commissioning the mine site relied on Diesel Fuel being trucked in from Port Headland with up to 6 trucks making deliveries every day to keep the operations going each day.
Having the Fuel Hub in place means that a larger stock of diesel can be stored on site (15 million litres) and Automatically filled from the Rail line and distributed through the plant Control Systems to the Mine Site, Power Plant, Loco dispensing and Truck Refill. This Fuel Hub now services all Rio Tinto Mine sites in the region.
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The fuel facility was audited by Megatronic Power Systems Engineering team in February 2015. One of the findings of the Audit was that the facility was having many breakdowns and constantly required Electrical and Mechanical maintenance support. A list of required upgrades and modifications was submitted to the client.
Megatronic Power Systems installed a new SCADA system and provided remote access to the site to minimise downtime as well as travel time for maintenance staff to the fuel facility. MPS have extracted a lot more diagnostic information from the PLC to the HMI's and the SCADA system. Pro-active warning systems are now in place. More control functionality has been added to the HMI. A number of other changes to the design and control philosophy provided more flexibility with the system's operation. To date, there has only been roughly 1 hour of downtime to the facility since MPS has finished the upgrades. MPS has also provided training for the facility since the upgrades and still provides ongoing support.
The entire fuel facility control system at Yandicoogina was audited in July 2015 by Megatronic Power Systems. There had been a lot of issues and a lot of downtime with this system resulting in Rio Tinto spending thousands of man-hours and millions of dollars trying to keep the facility operating. A list of findings along with a list of solutions was compiled and given to Rio Tinto by MPS.
Works are now being undertaken by MPS to rectify risks to operation. MPS is the main contractor responsible for Designing, Managing and Commissioning works on Electrical, Mechanical and Control System works fronts.
The Current end fuel distribution control system at on the Mine-site end of the new fuel hub at West Angeles is required to be upgraded. There are 3 different distribution system, Light Vehicle, Heavy Vehicle and the old power plant. The equipment that is used is obsolete and there are few spare parts available. Upgrading to a new system requires at least 4 new control cabinets (Outstations) design and built, 2 new PLC's and distributed I/O, and communications upgrade.
This is a high-risk brownfields changeover which will require minimal downtime to the current distribution system and the mine-site operations.
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Ongoing Control System Audits for existing control systems. Reducing downtime and Plant optimisation is the key goal for this project.
