Authors: Becky Rodríguez, Pablo del Río, David Romo and Katherine Ascencio
Presented at: Tailings 2026
Paper Abstract
Filtered tailings storage facilities (FTSF) are increasingly being adopted in mining operations across South America, driven by regulatory and environmental requirements, including water-use restrictions and seismic risk considerations. However, the gap between design capacity and actual dewatering plant performance during the early years of operation is a frequently reported challenge in the industry. This paper presents a specialist audit of the thickening and filtration circuit at an iron pellet plant in northern Chile, where the filter press plant operated consistently below its nominal design capacity.
Through a structured four-stage methodology—design review, statistical analysis of operational data, independent laboratory testing campaign, and integrated diagnosis—the root causes of the capacity gap were identified as genuinely multi-causal, spanning design assumptions, material behavior, and operational availability.
The root causes of the capacity gap were found to be genuinely multi-causal: flocculant dosage significantly above the laboratory optimum degrading thickener underflow density, a design filter cake moisture specification (15.3–16.7% w/w) that was not achievable with the actual material behavior, and filter plant runtime substantially below the design assumption. Scenario analysis showed that raising runtime from its observed level of approximately 53% to a realistic target of 67% is the dominant capacity-recovery lever, while independent transportability testing demonstrated that the cake moisture requirement can be relaxed to 20% (w/w) without adverse effects on belt conveying. The paper distills these findings into actionable lessons on representative metallurgical testing, independent technical review, conservative runtime assumptions, and the design of operational data-collection frameworks
ChemEng, BioEng
Becky is a Chemical and Biotechnology Engineer with more than 9 years of experience in high-performance teams, leading educational and science outreach projects. She is currently the Lab Manager and a Project Engineer at Paterson & Cooke in Chile.