Suppliers deliver reliable solutions that help operations maximize production

Reliability may be the selling point for slurry pumps right now, according to an engineer at Tsurumi. A handful of factors combine to create the trend.

And the top pump suppliers say their solutions have capabilities that support the uptime needed for miners to maximize production and, in turn, revenue.

Schurco Slurry said it supplied parts, pumps and engineering services to support uptime at a remote Alaskan gold mine. Company president Nick Schur said the supplier and its partner incrementally delivered more complex and critical solutions that now help ensure mining and milling proceed as planned.

“Schurco is willing to support customers in every way possible, whether it’s parts, complete pumps, or engineered solutions,” he said. “By partnering with local dealers, we’re able to combine engineering expertise with personal service, which makes a big difference for remote mines.”

The supplier has been working with the mine for almost two decades and in the course of that time developed a partnership with a local supplier, which synergized the capabilities of both companies. “Over the years, we’ve worked with different dealers, but today we’re partnered with Industrial Pumps of Alaska, or IPA,” said Oliver Nobels, director of engineering, Schurco. “IPA has been critical.”

The partnership benefits both companies and the miner. “The owner, Houston Morris, has built a strong relationship with the site, and that’s been a key part of the success,” Nobels said. “Having a local dealer gives the mine a personal connection and quick response,” he said. “Houston and his team even stock parts locally, so the mine has immediate access when needed.”

When the mine was hamstrung by long lead times and high prices from an OEM, it began foraging for solutions. “There wasn’t much competition, so they were stuck with limited options,” Nobels said. “When Schurco started visiting, it gave them an alternative they hadn’t considered before.”

Initially, the miner ordered Schurco wear parts for an 8-in. by 6-in. pump. “Performance and life cycle met expectations, but the big advantage was better pricing and faster availability compared to the OEM,” Nobels said. “That trial showed the mine they could count on Schurco.”

The mine continued ordering parts from Schurco. “After years of buying our wear parts, the mine decided to purchase complete Schurco pumps,” he said. “Our engineers went to the site to take all the measurements and collect the operating data, so the pumps would be a perfect fit for their system.”

Later, when the mine couldn’t replace a competitor pump “because of footprint and hydraulic constraints,” and because of “lead time and price,” Schurco offered engineering support, Nobels said. “Because we had not manufactured this product before, we needed to get onsite to gather the details.”

The miner contracted Schurco to “reverse-engineer it onsite,” he said. “We committed to the project, took all the necessary dimensions, and delivered a pump that dropped right in.”

The results were “less downtime, longer wear life and lower overall costs,” he said. The customer has also benefited from “shorter lead times and better support.”

Tsurumi KRS-, GSZ-, and GPN-series pump motors ensure reliability and uptime, and enable the pumping of difficult slurries while also reducing operating and maintenance costs, Donahue said.

“Tsurumi’s line of mining pumps with reduced-speed motors were designed to protect the pump in the most aggressive applications,” he said. KRS-, GSZ- and GPN-series pumps “provide prolonged and uninterrupted mine-site pumping,” said Pat Donahue, engineer, Tsurumi.

Those benefits arise from the comparatively lower impeller tip speeds.

Tsurumi pumps “feature 4-pole and 6-pole motors and have a reduced impeller tip speed as a result of the lower rotational speed of the output shaft,” he said. Impeller tip speed is “the linear velocity at the outermost portion of the impeller vane.” While 4-pole and 6-pole motors rotate at 1,800 RPM and 1,200 RPM, respectively, a “2-pole motor operating at 60 Hz rotates at 3,600 RPM, or 60 rotations per second.”

That means a 4-pole motor delivers half the RPM of a 2-pole motor. A 6-pole motor provides a third of the RPM of a 2-pole motor. The lower RPM gives a lower impeller tip speed.

Impeller tip speed “and wear are proportional to one another,” Donahue said. “The faster the impeller moves in a direction, the more of an impact it will have against hard abrasive solids suspended in a thick slurry,” he said. “This hard impact repeats continually as the impeller rotates, causing erosion on the impeller’s surface.”

A slower RPM and impeller tip speed “greatly extends the life of a pump’s wear components,” Donahue said. “Reducing the rotational speed can lower impeller tip speed, and therefore wear, by 50% to 66% compared to a 2-pole motor,” he said. “Combined with a high-chromium or a ductile cast-iron impeller, the pumps’ wear components will last substantially longer than those of a pump running off a 2-pole, 3,600-RPM motor with a standard cast-iron impeller.”

Longer lasting components “keeps the pumps operational and in the field longer,” he said. “Reduced wear will extend service intervals of the pump while minimizing shutdowns for maintenance and repair.”

Another benefit offered is higher torque. Higher torque ensures more availability and uptime.

“A common cause for unexpected pump shutdowns is motor overloading or stalling due to pumping heavy slurries,” Donahue said. “Slurries are thick and more resistant to flow than clean water,” he said. “This resistance to flow increases the torque required to move the fluid.”

Lower-RPM motors “can provide more torque than similar motors with higher speeds,” he said.

Tsurumi pumps with 4-pole and 6-pole motors “provide the high torque levels to move the thicker slurries,” Donahue said. “Especially in applications where the thickness of the slurry may vary, the added torque will allow the pump to be able to handle these variances more effectively.”

That capability will “prevent unexpected downtime caused by high-speed models being unable to handle difficult, high-viscosity slurries,” he said. “These benefits translate to greater operational uptime, which leads to a lower cost of ownership over the life of the pump.”

In search of those exact benefits, a surface coal mine turned to Tsurumi. Previously, the mine “had been using dewatering pumps for pumping out generally solids-free water from the pit,” Donahue said.

“For most of the year, these clean water pumps were fairly reliable,” he said. “However, whenever there was rain or snow, the water became muddy and full of solids due to the runoff from the precipitation.”

The solids “led to premature failure of the pumps due to abrasive wear,” he said. “The mine ended up replacing the dewatering pumps for Tsurumi GSZ pumps.”

Since commissioning, the Tsurumi pumps “reliably operate 24/7 throughout the year regardless of weather conditions or solids content of the water,” Donahue said.

“The GSZ model selected also features an agitator that helps stir up solids to prevent clogs or build-up around the pump’s suction port,” he said. “The GSZ was not only able to dewater, but also remove the mud around the mine’s excavators, which helped ensure reliable production of coal with minimal process interruptions.”

In a trial, a Warman mill pump ran more than 3,500 hours without unplanned maintenance and solved a processing challenge for a South American copper operation, Weir reported.

The miner was dissatisfied with its existing mill circuit pumps, and was seeking a pumping solution with comparatively lower operating expenses. Specifically, it wanted a pump with “no sealing problems, no torque issues and no interruptions to the mill circuit,” said Quinton Sutherland, global manager, strategic capital pump sales, in a paper submitted to Coal Age.

Further, the miner’s “existing pumps were failing to maintain cyclone pressure for classification, even when the driver still
had available speed capacity,” he said. “This suggested that the pumps were reaching their hydraulic limits before the motor’s speed was fully utilized, compromising process efficiency.”

Weir partnered with the mill’s teams to investigate the challenges. “This collaboration revealed two key areas for improvement, mechanical performance and service support,” Sutherland said. “As a result, Weir developed a comprehensive solution that combined advanced pump technology with enhanced spares and service delivery.”

Weir deployed a Warman MCU 450 mill pump to the plant. “Specialists selected the ideal product configuration in terms of pump size, geometry and materials, based on the deep understanding of the application,” he said.

The pump featured a new casing made of Ultrachrome A08 alloy and “designed to match the wear patterns of the plant,” Sutherland said. “Weir knew that this particularly arduous duty required careful materials selection to achieve the wear life the miner was targeting.” The custom impeller and throatbush were made of Hyperchrome A61 alloy.

The pump required no interventions during the trial. “The impeller’s wear life exceeded expectations, surpassing the 3,500-hour target,” Sutherland said.

“Notably, it lasted 1,628 hours longer than the competitor’s impeller, cutting annual parts costs, minimizing downtime and improving operational reliability,” he said. The pump’s casing surpassed the “target of 5,000 hours, reinforcing the pump’s durability and reliability in demanding conditions.” The reduced maintenance requirements lowered “personnel exposure to operational hazards and contributed to safer site conditions.”

The pump also delivered consistent pressure to the cyclone, “demonstrating superior hydraulic performance and ensuring consistent classification efficiency throughout the pump’s wear cycle,” Sutherland said. “As a result of the trial, the miner has decided to replace all eight competitor pumps with Warman pumps.”

This article was adapted from an article that was originally published in the September 2025 edition of Engineering & Mining Journal (E&MJ).

Finish Thompson said ULTRAChem (UC) series seal-less mag-drive centrifugal chemical pumps provide unparalleled durability and operation. The UCR and the UCP models are “engineered for extreme reliability in the most extreme chemical processing applications,” said Pete Scantlebury, vice president of development. Those applications include “leaching processes, acid mining treatment, reagent circulation, tailings and wastewater, just to name a few.”

Scantlebury describes both pumps as “magnetically driven, ANSI-dimensional pumps constructed from tough ductile iron with ethylene tetrafluoroethylene plastic (ETFE) housing linings for superior corrosion resistance.” This unfilled (semi-crystalline) ETFE housing linings provide a “dependable, leak-free operation with no environmental emissions, no power-robbing double mechanical seals and no seal support systems.”

Corrosion resistance, leak-free operation and load control ensure the pumps are “ultra-reliable, ultra-durable and, in the case of the UCP, ultra-profitable,” Scantlebury said. For the UCP, “the polypropylene (thermoplastic polymer)/ETFE construction allows a less expensive alternative to pumps made with ETFE exclusively, providing a competitive pricing advantage,” he said. “The polypropylene/ETFE blend means you don’t have to pay more for chemical resistance than you require, while still gaining the enhanced hydraulic capabilities of lined pumps, but at a lower cost.”

An operation in Chile that used mechanically sealed pumps to transfer concentrated sulfuric acid “was experiencing frequent fluid spills and hazardous environmental situations,” Finish Thompson said. “Significant resources were diverted to pump repairs and cleaning of the surrounding environment, which meant increased worker safety risk and decreased productivity.”

The miner switched to UC pumps and, henceforth, has “been very pleased with the performance of the pump, the low maintenance costs and the ease of changing spare parts compared to competitors’ pumps that they have used in the past,” the supplier said.

On the other side of the globe, a rare earth plant was using a competitor pump to transfer hydrochloric acid, sodium hypochlorite, sodium hydroxide and sulfuric acid. “They then discovered they could get faster delivery and a better value by choosing ULTRAChem pumps,” Finish Thompson reported. “The pumps have been in place for nine years of successful operation,” and “based on the results, the pumps are a perfect fit.”