Reducing the cost of consumables is very important for all mining operations and the finished products production. Cost reduction should not lead to decreased quality of the produced product.
Material grinding is one of the most important processes affect the total amount of costs in the minerals extraction and any product production. In some industries, grinding costs account for more than 10% of the company’s total operating costs (OPEX).
In most cases, steel grinding balls used as grinding media in grinding material. The selection the most efficient grinding media is considered a key step in reducing the grinding process cost.
Grinding processes are energy-intensive and inefficient in most cases. Some studies in this area show that 1% of global energy consumption is spent on grinding material. Therefore, it is very important to maximize the efficiency of the grinding process.
All costs for grinding can be divided into four main groups:
- electricity costs;
- the cost for grinding media purchase ;
- the cost for acquiring the lining to the mill’ inner drum;
- labor and other expenses.
For your attention is the above diagram clearly demonstrates each cost group consumed in the grinding process.
In some industries, the cost for grinding media purchase can be 40-45% of the total grinding costs. Based on this, we understand the grinding media choice is one of the most important factors in efficient grinding formation.
Note, a simple decision to buy cheap grinding media may not lead to maximum efficiency of the grinding process, due to their increased wear during operation. It is necessary to choose the most effective grinding media of many grinding media types in terms of price/consumption ratio.
Having a great experience in the grinding media market, we can confidently say, thanks to correctly selected grinding media, our clients managed to reduce the expenses for the process and cost price of finished products. This allowed them to strengthen their position in the market and send the released funds to the modernization and expansion of production.