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Expansion of 1000tpd white cement kiln and innovative clinker handling system: Naseer Siddiqui, Saudi White Cement (Saudi Arabia)

Filmed at Cemtech Europe 2015, 20-23 September, Intercontinental Hotel, Vienna, Austria.

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Mr Chairman, for the introduction. Ok. My presentation today is consisting of two parts as he described, one is the optimization of the white cement kiln, and the other is the innovative clinker handling. We had lots of problems with clinker handling so we couldn't do it. So since [xx] I'll skip through, the details and try to do my best.

Thank you very much. OK, just a brief history of it. We are located near Riyadh, and we had 700 ton per day plant which was put up in 2001. It never did, it was done by Babcock. Babcock gave us excellent machinery, but over the years we discovered that Babcock machinery was although very excellent, our limestone was not.

So, I think one of the major reasons was because enough exploration and detail studies of the limestone strong quality at various part of quarries was not made. So, we undertook a survey. Then we discovered that our limestone exploitation method was incorrect. So we did some deep drilling and we discovered that as we went down, the limestone quality became better.

So what we did was that based on that, we discovered that had reserves of up to 40 to 50 years. So with these reserves, it was quite possible to put up another 1000 tons per day lime because the demand in the kiln was about 700,000 to 800,000 tons per year. So whereas our existing plant was just getting for about 250,000 tons.

It never came to its rated capacity, so we thought we would either put up a new 1000 ton per day lime. If the fuel restrain from Aramco was not there but in fact it came up that Aramco refused to give us extra fuel. So we thought we'll have limited expansion, and we will go from 700 tons per day to 1000 tons per day of clinker.

So, there was a tough competition of that. But I'll also give you some in the backdrop of this contract, which we have done with FCB of France. So we awarded the contract to FCB of France and the expanded plant was commissioned in March,2013. So, there is a certain backdrop we already discussed some things about the limestone quarry, and we worked over it and with selective mining.

And better knowledge of our quarry. So we succeeded in getting high quality limestone, very low in iron and it had all the components required. So, for aluminum oxide, which is a requirement of white cement, we purchased kaolin[sp?] from Morocco, which is very expensive then we'd tapped some resources in Saudi Arabia also, so we decided that we will use the Moroccan kaolin[sp?] as a sweetener only, whereas the local kaolin[sp?] will be used mostly you see.

So, it gave us most of the aluminum oxide. The Moroccan kaolin[sp?] was there because we wanted some alkalis to balance the alkaline-sulphur ratio, was very important. Otherwise we would choke our pre-heaters. So, this is the limestone quarry and then I talked about the expensive Moroccan kaolin which we have discontinued over the last year. We were paying about 550 Riyals per ton for this kaolin, rendered in Saudi Arabia, compared to that the kaolin which we are getting as sweetener is just 100 Riyal, so which is five fold difference.So I will just go to the, Ok, that's something about the new machinery, then we talked about it and setup how you are going to do that so I will just give you the basics what you did was, of course there is a new impact pressure.

Previously we had one pressure of 270 tons per hour so that was crushing kaolin, limestone and gypsum all the three things. So we decided that we should have another crusher of 200 ton which will be only for kaolin and gypsum and the old one would be utilized for the crushing of the limestone only.

So, we discovered that the [xx] baring storage we didn't do anything. It was the same pre-blending storage we had, and now you can see. So this is the new crusher we have got. That's the old crusher. So, this new crusher also is when it comes to the same line then it drops down, and all way down.

Ok, we had a raw mill. So what we decided about raw mill was, our raw mill was in adequate for expansion of 1,000 tons. So, we decided to put another small raw mill of a smaller size as you will see. 2.65 into 5.5, and our original raw mill was 3.2 into 7.7 meter. And of course we needed to hire a very good separator, so we discarded our old separator and we put up in new separator over there along with the new small raw mill. They were working in tandom with each other, with the increased air and so many other features which we had in separator. This was the TSV Dynamic separator.

Right. And we optimized the ball mill charge, changes to the ducting conduction between raw mill and kiln to lower gas speed by adjusting the slope. Next. Now there you are. The blue one, that is the new ball mill, we've got over there that is the old ball mill. As you see, this is the new separator we have got.

And with all the system and we add a new big size bag filter also. Right. Then modification pyro-processing. As they said Ok, the kiln was fine, except for doing something so I will just quickly go through it. The kiln drive was changed from 120 KW to 270 KW to handle more load in the kiln.

Actually, we designed a floating shims which is very good, very successful. At the outlet, seal was adopted to replace the welded shims. It was decided to change the three shell sections under the tires as the chair was valve welded and hence some tire sections could not be reduced.

Floating shims to be using [xx] as I said above also. Downstream to replace. New plate heat exchanger to work in series with the old one, then new bypass system equipped with new back filters, fans, bucket elevators and stack sufficient for 20% bypass. So with only 10% bypass, there we thought we'll have a 20% bypass.

The pre heater the only thing changed was that the top two cyclones. There's a 4, 000 millimeter each. And they would help in limiting the pressure draw, I mean the retention time would be increased, and that increases the capacity of the heat exchanger. The old [xx] will be replaced by new FCB mixed reactor precalciner of 4, 400. They say this is their patron designed for three burners using crude oil. Then the [xx] duct definitely it had to be changed, existing. I'd be fine without it. It was appropriate. Maybe it was not the correct decision. Because we are running it at the limit. We might change it in the futureAnyhow, and then clinker cooling.

Clinker cooling the following replacement of the downstream shell[sp?] power reversal of the girth[sp?] gear on the drive system, new clinker back filter, installation of two addition fans and downstream cooler, new modified Clinker cooler water [xx] for stage. New diaphragm assembly, water spared to be optimized to 400 liters per ton of clinker Right that is very interesting.

So this is the [xx] regarding the bypass only. So this is the 20% bypass coming from the riser duct, then we have it over there and etc, then out to the ducts[sp?]. Right, and cement improvement. It was a similar thing which we did as we did to the raw mill. The cement mill was 3.24 into 11.4 and we added another mill to it, 3.2 into 8.5 meters size and we increased the grinding from 40 tons per hour, in fact it was giving just about 37 tons per hour, so we increase it to 57 tons per hour.

So, that was quite an increase and we needed it because we also thought of getting some clinker from outside, if we didn't have sufficient and if the market demand was there, and grinding it into our mill. And further from that we've built one more modification which I had not mentioned over here, that we are going to add another 10 tons to it by increasing the size of the fan, the circulating fun of the separator.

So we'll get 67 tons per hour. Similar storage was 6, 000 tons before and we increase it to 16, 000 by making the silo of 10, 000 tons. So, we can dispatch cement in bulk as well as bags. So this is a modification of the cement grinding. This is the new mill. This is the old mill, this is the new separator, alright.

Ok. This is important, I'll read them all for you. Net improvement in the plant after modification, production of clinker increased from an average of 650 tons per hour to 1, 000 tons per hour. Heat consumption decreased from 1, 300 kilo calorie to 1, 150 kilo calorie per kilogram of clinker.

Cement mill production increased from 37 tons to 57 tons, quite a substantial increase. Grand ability of cement in terms of electric consumption 52 kilowatt ton to 49, not substantial but it is a ball mill. Remember that and we had two ball mills not one for that ash to the inefficiency little, but still we improved.

Working days per annum of kiln improved from 280 to 320, so this is substantial. And the maintenance expenditure decrease, because we also revamp the whole of the plant with their own resources and we invited SCV to come over and do it for us, and they came and did their job. So, rightness on the Y scale. Ok, our Y whiteness is about 90% on the M scale, but if you multiply that 90 [xx] 90 on the M scale 90(90)/100 you get 81, right? So this is 81 to 83, and the internet standard is 80, so we did improve it to 83.

Water consumption. Now, you know Saudi Arabia is deficient of water, and we have to be very careful about water usage, particularly industry. So, the water consumption decrease from 20 cubic meter per hour to 16 cubic meter, in-spite of the added load on the mills. That's interesting.

New challenges I had, Ok, this I talked about we got 800, 000 we might put up another 1, 000 in the plant. So what we're going to use that as for fuel we will probably be using pet coke, and pet coke we can get from too refined Saudi Arabia. There's plenty of pet coke, in fact it is being exported also.

So we just require about 150, 000 tons per year. That will suffice for the deficiency of fuel which we have for our existing limes, and as well we will have it for a new lime also. So, once that is through then we will be able to put up a new lime, and then I will go to innovative clinker handling, we call it innovative because I think they require a lot innovations. In fact, we didn't know how to do it. But then after carefully studying it, we discovered that we could crisscross through the plant and go up to our clinker yard and mix some belt conveying clinker all the way to this thing.

Previously, what we are doing. Ok, I'll just go into it. Why we required to have the system. There was always a mismatch between the clinker production it always is, nearly all the plant because the clinker silo is normally small. Then you have to send the clinker to the jar, and how do you do that? You do it for dumpers. Now the dumper traffic is very hazard and thus estimating we required about 500[sp?] ducks. We were actually operating on 500 ducks[sp?] per day were required to transport the clinker to and fro from the yard.

So that was quite a bit, very hazardous. There were lots of accidents and one person also died once upon a time. So that part was a little congested because there were two lines in a small area. So, we thought that we just can't have it. So, we thought of a system that will send all of our excess clinker through the belt conveyors to the yard and then reclaim it.

We'll stack it over there then reclaim it through a bulk receiving unit which we thought about it, designed it with the help of [xx]. Our own people got involved in it and we finally find very nice route which. Okay. These trucks were causing the following problems, dust pollution, [xx] loss, nuisance due to truck [xx] in the plant, man power required for dump requires, lot of expenses [xx] made by treatment damage due to accidents and dust.

Sometimes they used to collide. One of the dumper collide against a compressor. Ok, increased cleaning cost of the plant. That was substantial. Idea emerged from the system. It was decided to set up a mechanical clinker handling system. Ok, from each of the two silos what we'll do is that we'll extract clinker and we will send it to a common belt conveyor, down to the jar and that will stack through a radial stacker.

So that was the idea. So we invited the quotation from three parties, all Chinese, Shnomois[sp?], CNBM, CIC and we gave the contract to shinomwa[sp?] at 7.37 million Dollars. So, then later the main features of the project. Three numbers of belt. Ok, I think these are the things I will not go through.

I have limited time about five minutes more. Ok, right sir. So there it is. The two numbers of bulks of units have tried, all in the paper. I believe it's going to be published so you can have access to it if you want to put up a system like this. This is very simple. You see on the left, this is one of the silos.

This is another silos, clinker silos and then we've got belt conveyor running over there to this integrated section and this is also intermediate station and then it joins together all the way down. This is about one kilometer long from here to here. And this a radial stacker which stack. This is the rail, and it works the rail and the stack's over there.

So what we do is, when we reclaim it, we reclaim it from the dumpers with the dumpers and the loaders and then they bring it over. This is the bulk receiving unit, so we've got two hoppers and two apron conveyors. The two trucks can load at one time. There's a 700 tons per hour which is sufficient for both our kiln, it's not a problem at all.

So, it 's very clean all the way down to the plant. Again back to the silos. Not to the silos, sorry. To the Apron[sp?] conveyor leading up to the cement kiln which is not shown here, and again this thing stacks into the Apron[sp?] conveyors leading to the [xx] right. And this is a elevation view of that, and then extraction from the silos.

Ok, this is some detail I will not go through this. And again these are some details some specifications, some [xx] might be of some help and [xx] these are the rough specifications. [xx] they gave us the apron conveyor and the belt conveyor also. Not, only the apron conveyor and [xx] and the advantage of this system, eliminate the dust pollution during dumper loading, eliminate the dump [xx] movement inside the plant, eliminate the nuisance due to truck movement of the plant, no material loss, improve the cleanliness inside the plant, the reduced manpower and expenditure required for dumper movement, maintenance and cleaning etc.

We're running the plant with 4 to 6% only. Eliminate nearby equipment damage due to dust. This is to know, this [xx] control totally. So when you're operating dumpers, you know, that men in the control room does not know what is happening. So he knows exactly what is happening over there.

That was a big achievement. Right, a [xx] of the contract 15th of December, effective date of contract 16 January and with commission on the 30th of April. Just about a year, you can call it and project cost was 7.3 million Dollar. Just over one year. Right. Look at the clinker all over the plant.

Very dirty and we didn't know what to do with that. So we had to do cleaning and etc. So there was layer of clinker all over. It's another view, this is also there, that the clinker bed formed in the plant because of this clinker handling. This is after the product. This is clean totally and as you can see from the last couple of months, we cleaned all the clinker. So we want to make sure, I always tell my guys, Ok, we want to make it as clean as a pharmaceutical plant which is not possible but we'll try to do as much as we can.

So I wanted to show you this thing. Now this is the end of the stacker and this is a retractable chute[sp?] and this [xx] that goes up as the level goes up. This makes a moment like this, see this thing except like this. You see this stacking right? And these are the belt conveyers going in a loop.

Alright. Then, this iss the bulk receiving unit, one and two and then we head through this setter. This is a dump truck. We've got 20 tonners which are unloading into it and this is the belt which is going into the plant, the belt which is coming into this thing. Coming into the clinker yard.

Right. This is an aerial view of it. So this is you can see it. This is very interesting. You see this belt? This is the belt which goes to stock from the plant to the stacker. This is the stacker at the end. So the bell goes over the compressor room, over the electric cable gallery you see, then it goes over the apron conveyor and then it goes this thing etc, and again then it is going under that.

This is the additive belt we've got over here, so this goes under the additive belt into the stacker. We had to really engineer it very carefully you see. So luckily we had a belt conveyor route all the way to the stacker over here. This is the reclaiming. This is the bulk receiving unit and for the bulk receiving unit, it's coming down here and this goes and drops into this, of this conveyor and this go to the cement mill proportioning station, and from there through the feeder and into the cement bale[sp?].

We have got ball mills, and then the second silo not shown in this projector somewhere here and it's doing the same thing over there. So gentlemen, thank you very much. Thank you for hearing me.

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