Page 40 - HUB-4 Magazine Issue 97

Aggregate Washing & Screening
DXB supply brand new pumpstation
to Holcim Torr Works Super Quarry
DXB Integrate, the pump sales and hire sister
company of manufacturer DXB Pump & Power,
recently commissioned the brand new 900
litre/sec pumpstation in Torr Works, one of the
largest quarries within Holcim UK at an output
of 5.5m tonnes per annum.
Initially designed and quoted in 2024, the project began in
earnest in the autumn of 2025 after being expanded from the
original supply of five DXB electric pumpsets to a turnkey
supply and installation of the pumps, pipeline manifolds and
civils including a large concrete base complete with cable runs
from the new MCC container located close by.
Designed in co-operation with the Torr engineering team, the
final DXB design allowed the quarry to move away from the
historic method of using additional submersible pumps in
sumps that required blasting and excavating, by combining
with existing pumps that were moved down to the new lower
benches.
With a new design concept incorporating an inline booster
pump station installed on a higher bench and splitting the
existing pipelines, DXB designed a solution that eliminated the
risk of future recirculation leakage from any new sump and
substantially increased the output and water-to-wire efficiency
of the overall dewatering system.
The existing dewatering system included multiple large
submersible pumps operating in sumps and well back on the
performance curve due to the high static head, at around
150l/sec with a total dynamic head of more than 100m on 8th
bench up through two large 600mm HDPE pipelines and
manifolds with extensive control and monitoring equipment
managing their safe operation.
With the quarry going down a further two 15m benches over
the next five years, the quarry sought a solution that
maximised flow rates without making the existing pumps
redundant and optimised the dewatering system to reduce
power consumption and energy costs as much as possible.
Using their thirty-year global mine and quarry dewatering
experience, DXB designed a solution that enabled the super
quarry to continue to use their existing pumps by splitting the
total static head, locating a booster pumpstation half way up
the quarry in a redundant area, bringing the submersible
pumps back to a flow rate twice as high as they were
operating at before the installation was completed.
Said Phil Finlay, Operations Director and Onsite Manager for
the Torr project, “ designing the pumpsets for this project was
probably the simplest part of the project but being asked to
convert this into a turnkey solution managing the civils and
pipework changes was something DXB had never done on
such a large scale.”
The project involved managing local suppliers who had
experience of working on Torr and ensuring that all facets of
the project fell into place and were completed on schedule to
ensure that the delivery was done in line with the customers
expectations.
Working closely with the specific on-site Holcim Project
Engineer enabled Phil and the DXB team to complete the civils
before the worst of the UK winter weather set in and gave the
team a good foundation on which to install the pumpsets and
associated manifold system whilst the MCC control systems
were being installed next door.
With the whole system installed before Christmas, efforts were
turned to the supply of a new pipeline from the new sump in
the 9th bench to be hooked up to the new pumpstation which
was now located three benches up on level 6 meaning moving
the two existing 600mm HDPE pipes and installing a new
355mm HDPE pipeline for the washplant feedlines.
All the new pipework was completed in early February after
battling bad weather and on-site conditions that were
extremely challenging, allowing for the commissioning in mid-
February.
Working with the Holcim Torr resident IT team and electrical
contractor Nexdorf, DXB designed a new operating philosophy
that allowed all eleven pumps to operate in parallel/series
including the new 1.5MW pumpstation that had three 400kW
booster pumps and two new 110kW washplant booster pumps
all operating in duty/standby configuration.
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www.hub-4.com March/April - Issue 97