Six river crossings for a slurry pipeline
The Pasminco Slurry Pipeline carries zinc and lead ore concentrate slurries 300km from Pasminco's Century Mine, 250km north-west of Mt Isa, to Karumba on the coast of the Gulf of Carpentaria for shipment to markets. Lucas engineered six major river crossings using HDD to protect the cultural heritage of the traditional landowners, meet strict environmental standards and avoid problems with river bank erosion.
The pipeline is the longest single boost pump station pipeline in the world and one of few that pump two different concentrates - zinc and lead. The concentrates are pumped as a slurry at 37 percent solids in batches separated by water at a rate of 300 cubic metres an hour.
To minimise damage to the pipe's lining by the abrasive slurry, the crossings had very shallow entry and exit angles. These demanded the development of special drilling techniques.