HEC's Slurry Digest

Welcome to the first edition of the HEC Slurry Digest/Jamaica edition. I am excited about the opportunity that this and future newsletters will offer our Jamaican customer and clients. We now have the ability to get information about existing products, new products, parts, repair capabilities, and service improvements to our clients in a quick and friendly format. Each newsletter will have helpful information about applications of our equipment, new products available through HEC, expediting, and customer service.

Our goal is to provide you with interesting and informative information which address slurry handling. Hunter Equipment Company, Inc. prides itself on being slurry experts, and there will be sections of particular interest to operators, engineers, reliability groups, plant managers, purchasing, and receiving personnel.

Hunter Equipment Company, Inc. wants you to know that we are proud of our commitment to Jamaica and the companies that we do business with. We have local representation, pay local taxes, and support other local businesses. We consider ourselves to be a multi-national company and we believe that it is imperative that we give back to Jamaica, for the opportunity to do business in this beautiful country. We understand the local customs, respect the history and heritage of this land, and pledge to be good corporate citizens of this innovative Caricom leader.

HEC wants you to know that we are here to help. Our staff is trained and ready to offer you real solutions to your slurry handling needs. Whether you are looking for a part for your existing equipment, a new valve, pump, hydrocyclone, or mixer or a solution to a slurry-handling problem, we are here to lend a hand.

Thank you for allowing us the opportunity to serve you. Take a look around. If you are receiving this as an electronic document, the top bar links back to our website. If you have a paper copy, you can find this document and much more at www.hunterequipmentco.com.

If you have any comments or questions about The Slurry Digest,please call or email me. I look forward to hearing from you.

David S. Pratt, President

Tracking your order from Factory to your door. That's Customer Service the HEC way. Shannon handles our logistics for all of our international orders. Once your order is ready to ship, she tracks the order every step of the way.

Whether you choose air or ocean transportation, you can rest assured that your equipment is getting the attention it needs to arrive on-time at your facility.

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Lunkenheimer Valves, now a Tyco Company, is back and stronger than ever!!

Lunkenheimer - a legendary company in the alumina industry - is now owned by Tyco Valves and Controls. The association with TV&C has given this industry giant a new direction, new capabilities, and a new commitment to the industry that it has served for over 100 years.

The company was bought in the 1990's by John Valve Company, an Australian firm that went bankrupt a few years later. Lunkenheimer customers were left wondering what would happen to the hundreds of valves that were still in service at their refineries.

In 2002 Tyco purchased the rights to manufacture the Lunkenheimer slurry valve. Lunkenheimer/Tyco is taking back it's role as the alumina industry premier slurry valve. Angle, Bayonet, Check, and Combination valves operated by handles, gears, and automated actuators are available to the Jamaican market through Hunter Equipment Company, Inc. which serves the area as the full line Tyco distributor. Valves, parts, and service are available to the Jamaican alumina companies through HEC.

Tyco has built new ISO 9001 quality certified foundries in China and India, which along with the Brisbane, Australia headquarters have boosted it's output capabilities beyond any other slurry valve manufacturer in the world. Recent projects such as the Alcan Gove (G2) expansion, consisting of 2500+ valves,have proven that the company has reclaimed it's place as the leading supplier of self grinding slurry valves in the world alumina market.

HEC has recently received and delivered orders to Gramercy Alumina, Jamalco, Ormet, and Alumina Partners of Jamaica for Lunkenheimer valves. We are putting together a service center to repair the valves we sell, and will offer reduced lead times on parts and valves and local stocking capabilities in order to better serve the Jamaican market.

The alumina industry is well known as some of the toughest pump applications in the industrial sector. High temperature, high pH, extreme abrasion, and severe scaling are but a few of the obstacles that a slurry pump must overcome. When it comes to alumina slurries, Hunter Equipment Company brings you the GIW Industries line of heavy-duty centrifugal slurry pumps. With hundreds of alumina installations worldwide, the GIW LCC slurry pump is a proven answer to the toughest pumping jobs.

Red side duties such as mud washer underflow, sand removal, ball mill discharge, blow off, and red mud tailings are handled with efficient, long lasting, abrasion resistant GIW pumps. White side applications such as seed transfer, cyclone feed, pump around, tray underflow, and hydrate filter feed have proven GIW pump design to be the answer for the most arduous tasks.

GIW is the world leader in the transfer of solids using centrifugal pumps. Slurry pumps are the ONLY pumps made by GIW. Home to the world's largest slurry pump hydraulic laboratory, GIW leads the way in metallurgy, design, and expertise in the science of moving abrasive slurries. Since 1894-- slurry pumps have been the focus of this company based in Grovetown, Georgia.

Matched with HEC's customer service, alumina expertise, and locations in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and Mandeville, Jamaica, GIW is ready to take on the toughest applications in the plant. Let us show you... WE KNOW ALUMINA!

Shannon Sheldon is our inside sales manager. Shannon is charged with the tasks of processing all orders for HEC as well as our invoicing. Whether you are ordering parts, or new equipment, your order will be handled by Shannon. She is also responsible for our International Logistics. Materials coming to Jamaica will be coordinated by Shannon and our agents in Jamaica. She keeps her focus on supplying the information you need to track your equipment order.

Shannon has been with Hunter Equipment Company for eight years. She lives just outside of Baton Rouge in Port Vincent Louisiana. She has two daughters, Chelsea age 11 and Alexis age 5, who keep her very busy.

The alumina industry has used a device known as a "swing blind" to isolate piping in several areas of the Bayer process for many years. A swing blind is a line sized steel plate that slips between two flanges and provides a secure, absolute shutoff to the pipeline, allowing zero downstream flow or leakage. It is used to isolate pumps for maintenance, tanks for cleaning, and to provide a fail proof way to insure that no flow through the piping is possible.

The problems with this technology are apparent. Large diameter blinds of 16" to 20" require at least two operators and several hours of laborious work with large heavy sledgehammers. It is a dangerous, time-consuming task that has many opportunities for injury. The piping carries hot caustic liquids that form scale, and the "swinging" of the blinds from open to closed or back is a task that no one looks forward to performing.

The Clarkson knife gate valve is a robust, heavy isolation valve designed for the most difficult slurry applications. The valve utilizes opposing steel reinforced elastomer sleeves, which actually form the pressure vessel and protect the frame and body from contact with the material in the pipeline. The sleeves are under a predetermined degree of compression, which forms the most abrasion resistant material available in contact with the slurry. When the valve is in the open position, the nose of the two sleeves are in contact, forming a 360 degree seal and the before mentioned, line sized pressure vessel. The valve gate is completely out of the flow and is poised outside the top of the sleeves, waiting to be called into service. When the valve is in the closed position, the sleeves are in contact with each side of the gate, again forming a 360-degree, bubble tight seal, which provides the same type of isolating effect as the steel plate of the swing blind. The gate in the closed position travels completely through the lower part of the sleeves, therefore it has absolutely no chance of downstream leakage.

Coupled with the fact that an air actuated valve closes at a rate of one inch per second, it is obvious that the use of a Clarkson knife gate valve offers the alumina industry a safer alternative to the swing blind. The use of the air-actuated valve adapts extremely well to the automated process controls in use today. The valve can be actuated via the control room and offer the plant a safe, leak free option to the long used manual swing blind, and a quick and trouble free open or shut pipeline with no safety concerns.

Donovan Summers
info@hunterequipmentco.com

Ph: (876) 944-0191
Cell: (876) 817-4834