ppc riebeeck mine and cement factory - Aurecon AME ...

PPC Riebeeck West: Storm water Management Plan Page 29
1.7.1 Bulk loading
Bulk loading refers to the loading of cement in a large tanker and not in bags. Cement is
exported in bulk either via railway trucks or road trucks.
Cement from the cement silos is fed into a 1000 ton bulk silo for OPC and a 1000 ton bulk silo
for Rapo cement. There is a loading point for both road trucks and rail containers from each of
the bulk silos. Loading is controlled by manual measurements, level indicators and by loading
activities taking place on a weigh bridge. This weight is re-confirmed by a weigh bridge at the
sales office.
1.7.2 Clinker loading
If and when required clinker is transported by the overhead crane out of the crane store and
loaded either into railway wagons or road trucks. Once loaded the wagons or trucks are
weighed and if necessary topped up from a small stockpile of clinker adjacent to the tippler.
Clinker is transferred between PPC operations depending on demand and stock.
1.7.3 Packing / palletising plant – loading of bags
The PPC packing plant is SANS 1841 accredited, which aims to guarantee the correct weight
within the bags. This is achieved through daily checks of all scales, ongoing in house
calibration and external calibration of all scales every 12 months. Any bag of a weight of 49.5
kg or less is classified as underweight and destroyed.
Riebeeck has one automated packer which can pack up to 3,200 bags per hour, but normally
runs at 1,800 bags per hour. Cement from the silos is fed into the packer which bags 50kg of
the cement into bags. Either 70gsm 3ply paper bags or polypropylene bag are used. All bag
breakages (which include destroyed underweight bags) are monitored and if excessive break of
a batch of bags is recorded, a different batch will be used. Breakage target is less than 0.6%.
From the packer, the bags of cement are transferred via conveyor belts to a palletiser which
stacks either 40 bags or 20 bags of cement onto one pallet.
PPC Riebeeck also dispatches bags via a 1 or 2 ton “belly sling”. This is where bags on a pallet
are inverted into the belly sling and once in, the pallet is reused.
Pallets of cement and belly slings of cement bags are stored in the warehouse, until being
loaded by forklift onto haulage trucks for final dispatch. The PPC policy is to advise all
transporters to cover the cement loads from the plants with a tarpaulin to protect it from the
elements.
Dust suppression in the packing and palletising plant is achieved through use of a bag filter that
traps cement dust and returns it back to the cement silos for redistribution.
1.7.4 Big bag machine
Some cement is loaded in big bags which can hold 1.5 tons of cement per bag. Big bags are
filled from the extraction system from the main silos to the bulk silos. There is a bag filter to