The Da Hong Shan pipeline has the highest operating pressure and largest total lift of any pipeline in China at its time of completion.
Ausenco’s control systems group was selected to provide a supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system, including system integration; programming and field installation; a fibre optic telecommunications system; and Ausenco’s Pipeline Advisor™ package for process optimisation and leak detection.
The pipeline system transports up to 2.3 million tonnes per year (Mt/y) of iron concentrate 171 kilometres (km) from the Da Hong Shan mine site in Yunnan to the steel mill at the Anning Terminal.
The system includes three positive displacement pump stations with a total pumping capacity of 8,100 kw and four remote, solar-powered pressure monitoring stations.
The system features:
- Eight programmable logic controllers (PLC), including Allen-Bradley ControlLogix and CompactLogix models
- Integration with nine mainline pump Allen-Bradey SLC500 systems
- Five Wonderware human-machine interface (HMI) consoles; two at Pump Station 1, and one each at the other pump stations and terminal. These were developed in Mandarin Chinese.
- Ethernet over fibre optic communications between all stations. No intermediate fibre optic repeaters stations were required.