Fluxo took another big step towards consolidating its represented Valvtechnologies and Shafer in the national mining market. Soon after the supply of valves and actuators for Samarco's Booster Station project, Fluxo signed another contract for the supply of metal-to-metal type ball valves, resistant to abrasion from Valvtechnologies with hydraulic actuators from Shafer for the pipeline project Bauxite Paragominas (MBP), by Vale do Rio Doce (CVRD).
CVRD began the execution of the project to build the world's first bauxite pipeline, which will enable the expansion of the Alunorte plant in Pará, by transporting bauxite from the Paragominas mine to the refinery at the plant in Barcarena, over a 244-kilometer extension. The project's total investment is US$ 164 million and Alunorte's production capacity will be, first-hand, expanded from the current 2.4 million to 4.3 million tons of alumina.
The region of Paragominas is very rich in bauxite, a raw material for the manufacture of aluminum. CVRD holds 18 active processes of mineral exploration rights in the region of Paragominas, State of Pará, with a total amount of metallurgical bauxite estimated at 878 million tons, already known by CVRD.
Applications in which ores are transported in an aqueous medium, as in the case of Paragominas, require piping with components resistant to wear caused by the high aggressiveness and abrasion of the ores. This is the case of Valvtechnologies ball valves, prepared to withstand the abrasive processes of pipelines and capable of reaching high levels of hardness and surface resistance, provided by the internal hardening process by the RAM (Rocked Applied Material) system.
In this project, where the Bauxite slurry will be transported from Paragominas to Barcarena, a total of 84 valves will be provided to be installed in this pipeline, all of the metal-metal sphere type with high abrasion resistance in the most varied diameters, from 1½" to 24 ”, actuated by hydraulic and manual actuators. A Hydraulic Power Unit - HPU (Hydraulic Power Unit) will also be provided to power the actuators.