GIW Industries, the leader in the design, manufacture, and application of heavy-duty, centrifugal slurry pumps, announced two major contracts with Mexico’s Industrias Peñoles.

GIW has signed an exclusive contract to provide its full line of pumps for a Peñoles project in Durango, Mexico, as well as for a Peñoles subsidiary in Sonora, Mexico. This marks GIW’s first direct and exclusive sale to a Mexico-based customer.

Exclusive pump provider
As part of the Velardena Project in Durango, GIW will provide all the slurry pumps for the Minera El Roble Plant, which underwent commissioning and startup in January 2013. This exclusive package features 57 slurry pumps, including the LCC-R heavy-duty rubber pump, LSA and MDX severe-duty metal pumps, LCC-M heavy-duty metal pump, and High-Volume Froth (HVF) pump. The plant will process a combination of metals and has an installed capacity of 8,000 tons per day (TPD). Operations include one semi-autogenous grinding (SAG) mill, one ball mill, a flotation plant (for copper, zinc, and lead), and a conventional circuit with rougher and cleaner stages and regrinding.

GIW will also provide 30 pumps (including MDX, LCC-M, LCC-R, and HVF pumps as well as LSA-HP severe-duty metal pumps) for the La Herradura Dynamic Leach Concentrator plant in Sonora. This plant, with a nominal capacity of 6,500 TPD, is the largest gold producer in Mexico. The plant features one SAG mill, one ball mill, a special flotation plant, and high-pressure tails pumps.

A trustworthy partnership
Mexico has a history of commercial mining reaching back at least 500 years. Today, Mexico is a major producer of multiple minerals and a primary destination for mineral exploration. Industrias Peñoles, headquartered in Mexico City, is the second-largest Mexican mining company; the first Mexican producer of gold, zinc, and lead; and the world leader in silver production. (The company also produces copper, bismuth, and cadmium.) With four divisions located across Mexico, Peñoles has active mines throughout the country and prospective project locations in South America.

After a poor experience with a previous vendor, “Peñoles was looking for a pump provider that could be a real partner,” says Walter Gonzales, GIW business development engineer for the Latin America region. “It found one in GIW.”

The previous vendor had sold equipment to the company — and then disappeared. “They never appeared in the plants or offered support,” explains Gonzales. To help Peñoles see that GIW was a very different kind of pump provider, the company invited Peñoles project, maintenance, and procurement managers to visit GIW headquarters in Grovetown, Ga.

Proof of commitment and quality
“We invited most of the people who were involved in the projects to visit our factory in Georgia,” says Gonzales. “They toured the factory and could speak with our engineers and designers. They saw the process involved in manufacturing the pumps. After this visit they realized that GIW controls most of its manufacturing processes, while it’s unlikely that its competition does the same. They were also able to visit some of our customers in the United States. They could ask them directly about their experience with GIW pumps and services. They could see that we were involved in the support for the project as well as in the sales and after-sales. And we promise that we will have a technical person available to solve any problems at the plants.”

At GIW, salespeople aren’t just salespeople. They are also highly knowledgeable about the entire slurry system and the challenges of customers’ industries. Gonzales says, “Peñoles can have confidence that GIW equipment has better wear life, technology, and materials than competitors’ products because they saw that we manufacture our own equipment. They saw our slurry lab, which is the biggest in the world.

“We aren’t just a vendor. We don’t just sell pumps; we develop solutions that truly reduce customers’ total cost of ownership and improve performance for their entire operation.”

About GIW Industries
GIW Industries began as a small foundry and machine shop in Augusta, Ga., in 1891. In 1914, GIW began building slurry pumps. Today, the company comprises two manufacturing facilities, one in Grovetown, Ga., and the other in Thomson, Ga. These foundries and machine shops are used for manufacturing and assembling pumps and for casting a variety of abrasion-resistant alloys and urethane elastomers. As a subsidiary of KSB AG of Germany, a global pump and valve manufacturer, GIW has the infrastructure to supply pumps worldwide. KSB has presence in 100 countries with sales organizations, offices, and 30 manufacturing sites.