San Rafael Mining Unit

Project Overview

San Rafael Mining Unit is located in the Puno Region, Peru. It has an altitude of 4,500 masl with the highest point above 5,000 masl. San Rafael is the third largest tin producer in the world. It currently produces 12% of the world's tin.

Project Role

Knight Piésold developed detailed engineering for the tailings transport and distribution, pumping system, and recovery of process and infiltration and sub drainage water from tailings deposits B3 and B4. All this in order to start up the new Process Plant B2, to reprocess the old tailings from tailings deposit B2.

There was also a need to redesign and update the existing tailings transport system for the tailings pumping project of the B3 tailings deposit. This is due to the successive re-expansions of the dam.

The engineering consisted of designing a system that meets Minsur´s operating standard, to manage a tailing flow of 1,033 m³/h and 1,393 m³/h of water recovery.

For this service, Knight Piésold implemented the use of:

• Two pumping stations with three vertical pumps each
• Two pumping barges with three vertical pumps each
• HDPE and steel pipes for the transport of recovery water and tailings
• One infiltration and sub drainage recovery station with two horizontal pumps and a generator set
• Three electrical rooms for command and control of the pumping stations