AMEC front end Engineering details from Engineering magazine -
- Written by E&MJ News
Allana Potash has engaged AMEC Americas to complete Front End Engineering and Design (FEED) on its 1-million-metric-ton-per-year (mt/y) Danakhil muriate of potash project in Ethiopia in anticipation of completion of project financing and expected start of construction. AMEC's work will be undertaken primarily by its Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, office and is estimated to take about six months to complete.
The work will include design of process, maintenance, and service buildings; conveyance to and from the ponds; product storage; truck loading facilities; power generation and fuel storage; general roads and other project infrastructure; temporary and permanent works camps; and port facilities, including truck unloading, product storage, and ship-loader facilities integration
AMEC also will prepare the project management plan, including a work breakdown schedule and definition of supply and construction scopes and packages, and it will prepare principal design documents in preparation for final detailed engineering and construction documentation. It will complete civil, concrete, and steel materials take-offs based on 3-D modeling; complete trade-off and optimization studies related to certain process components, modularization, power supply, materials movement, and layout options; develop the procurement and construction contracting plan, including compilation of the list of qualified prospective suppliers and contractors; and initiate procurement with formal requests for quotation for long-lead items and items required to be rough set as structural steel is erected and modules configured.
Allana has also announced that it has engaged ERCOSPLAN Ingenieurgesellschaft Geotechnik und Bergbau to complete a preliminary economic assessment of kainitite resources within the Danakhil project area that may be amenable to sulphate of potash production. The kainite resources occur in a kainite horizon that is interpreted as a primary evaporite unit in the basin and has been intersected in diamond drilling in most of the mining license area.
The preliminary economic assessment will examine the use of solution miningto mine the kainitite horizon and produce 1 million mt/y of sulphate of potash from the brine as a separate operation from the current muriate of potash development program.