Expert Witness Services for Litigation - Iron Ore
Processing Plant
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Client Defendant: CONFIDENTIAL |
Engagement Attorney: CONFIDENTIAL |
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Plaintive |
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Completion Date
Continuing Assignment
Project Description
As seen in the graph below, the price of iron ore concentrates rapidly increased 600% from roughly $30/mt in 2005 to over $180/mt in 2011, as part of the commodities boom/bubble at that time. The iron ore extraction and supply industry quickly responded to what was a highly profitable situation. New mines/reserves were opened and existing facilities expanded in Africa, the Americas, and Australia.
One major firm in the
industry had an existing, decades-old iron ore concentrates plant adjacent to
an open-pit mine. Mine reserves were sufficient to consider increasing
plant production by a significant amount and extending the life of the plant by
decades. The “as mined” iron ore is extracted by blasting methods.
This produces extremely large boulders that are transported by a fleet of
off-road haul trucks, from the pit to the plant’s receiving hoppers.
Roughly 2.5-to-3.0 metric tons (mt) of raw iron ore
is typically mined to produce one metric ton of iron ore concentrate. The
plant uses primary crushers and grinding mills to reduce the “as mined”
boulders to a fine particle size that is -20 mm. A screening,
recirculation, and separation circuit sends the +3 mm particles back to the
mill and liberates the iron (Fe) mineral matter from the waste material, to
produce iron ore concentrates.
After moving forward with the project, in 2012 the potentially high profitability of the expanded plant was tempered by the fall of iron ore prices. Cost cutting changes to the project were initiated. The plant’s expansion program did not expand primary crushing. The new facilities were added downstream of the existing crushers. System redundancy for the new downstream conveying system was cut.
Shortly after the start-up of the new systems, operating problems were experienced, due to the product sizes now being discharged by the original primary crushers. The plaintive attribute the problems to “inappropriate or faulty design” by the engineering-management firm, equipment manufacturers, and system suppliers. Multiple engineering firms were engaged by the plaintive to provide their opinions in written reports.
The defending
engineering-management firm engaged Energy Associates as an Expert Witness to
review project documents, the reports being generated, and offer independent
opinions as an engineering expert with expertise in the area of design and
installation of bulk material handling systems. The scope extends from
primary crushing through to grinding.
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Expert Witness Services for Mediation
– Biomass Pellet Process Plant |
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Client |
Engagement Attorney |
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EPCM Provider/Insured EAD
Engineering, Inc. |
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Opposing Party -
Owner/Developer/Operator |
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Completion Date
Settled
Project Description
Renewable energy is a growth industry and biomass power generation is one of the technologies that qualify for subsidies in a number of countries. Because of its lower energy content compared to other fuels, direct utilization of native agricultural and forest products is often geographically limited. The cost of transportation makes supplying native biomass materials to distant plants an expensive option. The industry’s solution is to process these materials into a stable, high energy density commodity; one that can be transported by conventional modes of transportation. Biomass wood pellets have and are being manufactured and utilized. It is a growth market and a fuel that is being used in new and existing power plants. Existing coal-fired plants are using biomass as part of a blended fuel and some coal-fired plants are being converted to burn biomass as the primary fuel. Rentech is a US based firm that entered the biomass, wood pellet fuel supply arena by purchasing small firms that supply biomass wood pellets and constructing their own, major biomass wood pellet manufacturing plants.
In 2013 RTK WP Canada (Rentech) purchased a mothballed, oriented strand fiberboard
(OSB) manufacturing facility in Wawa, Ontario from Weyerhaeuser, for the
purpose of converting it to a wood pellet plant. This repurposed plant
would manufacture approximately 360,000 mtpy of
biomass wood pellets, which would be principally shipped via the Port of Quebec
to the Drax Power Plant in the UK. The Atikokan
biomass manufacturing plant was likewise a conversion project to supply
approximately 90,000 mtpy of wood pellet, principally
to the Ontario Power Generation’s adjacent power station.
The infrastructure and facilities of the existing Wawa and Atikokan plants were considered to be advantages to minimize project costs and schedule. Being one of the first to secure long-term supply contracts in a new market can be a key advantage. The production equipment and systems needed for a biomass wood pellet are rather different than an OSB plant. There a choices for equipment assessment, repair, upgrading, demolition, abandoning-in-place, repurposing, replacement, and system optimization. Each choice has cost, schedule, and production impacts. As the owner, developer, and operator of the Wawa and Atikokan pellet plants, Rentech undertook major portions of the project, including: permitting, scheduling, engaging a variety of firms for the work, purchasing of major equipment and systems, and engaging construction contractors. Rentech engaged EAD Engineering to provide engineering, procurement, construction, and management (EPCM) services for Wawa and Atikokan biomass pellet manufacturing plants and required EAD to incorporate changes requested by Rentech.
Construction/scheduling/operating problems, system changes, and changes in sourcing of the plant’s raw/in-feed materials resulted in start-up delays, increased costs, and production shortfalls. EAD filed liens to recover unpaid invoices. Rentech filed crossclaims.
Continental Casualty Company retained Energy Associates to review available project documents, provide opinions concerning the biomass handling system for the Wawa facility, prepare a Preliminary Expert Report for the mediation, and attend the mediation itself.
Non-Fatal Dump Truck Accident – Midwest Location
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Client CONFIDENTIAL – Insurance Company |
Engagement
Attorney |
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Insured CONFIDENTIAL |
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Completion Date
June 9, 2107
Project Description
The insured firm operates limestone aggregate quarries in the Midwest. Their facilities are open pit mines that produce limestone aggregate for the construction industry. These materials are DOT approved and maintain a high degree of consistency. To prepare such products, the quarries have crushing, screening, and product storage operations. The fines that are screened from the construction aggregate products are segregated and stockpiled as agricultural limestone and lime for local farms. The quarry operates a fleet of off-road haul trucks, motor graders, front end loaders, etc. Product stockpiles are created by stackers and mobile equipment. Products are loaded into trucks either via a truck loading bin or a front end loader. Commercial trucks are weighed on a scale for roadway weight compliance, product tracking, and billing purposes. A portion of a quarry operation is pictured below.
Agricultural lime was loaded from a stockpile by a front end loader into a tractor/trailer having a 35-foot triaxle hydraulic-dump bed. It was one of multiple loads being shipped to a local farm. Loads where being dumped on a farm road, in preparation for spreading onto the adjacent field. Several loads had already been successfully dumped along the road. Reportedly, the agricultural lime was wet and trailer was positioned on the slightly uneven field road dump site, which sloped left-to-right. The driver raised the trailer to its full extended position but a portion of the cargo in the nose of the trailer did not slide out, causing a top-heavy condition. The tractor/trailer truck rolled to the right onto the field. The driver fell from the driver seat, landing on the passenger side of the cab. There was no eye witness to the incident.
Energy Associates was engaged to reviewed documents; researched available information; attended site visits of the quarry and accident site; and provided a verbal site report.
Fatal Accident at Maalt
Transportation, Pecos, TX
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Client Great American - Specialty E & S Division Cincinnati, OH 45202-4201 |
Engagement
Attorney |
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Manufacturer/Insured Wilson Manufacturing & Design, Inc. |
Operator |
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Completion Date
August 23, 2017
Project Description
The resurgence of the oil and gas industry in the United States is due to the fracking technology that was developed to revitalize what was largely considered to be depleted oil bearing formations. This technology marries horizontal drilling techniques with hydraulic fracturing of oil bearing formations using a highly pressurized slurry to create new wells. The porous fractured rock provides new paths through which oil and gas can flow. The extraction process depends on these pathways remaining open, once the hydraulic pressure is released. Extremely hard, uniformly spherical particles in the slurry hold the pathways open. This material, known as frac sand and proppants, are not commonly available at quarries or dredging operations. Instead, they are mined at a limited number of sites, which are distant from the oil fields being exploited.
For any given oil bearing formation, large quantities of high quality frac sand are required. The distance, large quantities, and distribution to drillers required a new transportation network; one that appeared quickly, with the boom in oil production in the US. The economical transport choice involves trainloads of frac sand delivered from distant mines to a distribution terminal near the oil fields. From the distribution terminal, frac sand is trucked to the users. Maalt Transportation is one company that hauls frac sand and operates several terminals in Texas. The Pecos facility utilizes mobile unloaders to unload strings of railcars and directly loads tank trucks, employing several mobile unloaders for this purpose. The facility does not have separate storage on-site. Pictured below is a railcar being unloaded by a mobile unit at Pecos.
An accident occurred during the unloading of frac sand with
a mobile railcar unloader. The unloader operator was fatally
injured. Energy Associates was engaged to provide expert consulting
services. The scene of the accident was visited, the unloader was
visually inspected, a verbal consultation was provided at the site, and issues
discussed.
