Operation, Maintenance and Environmental Services
We operate environmental plants, networks and processes for the control, transport and treatment of critical fluids, and water purification at mining and industrial camps.
At a mine site, water and effluent are not a background service: they are the condition for the operation to keep running. A reverse osmosis plant that stops leaves a camp without potable water hundreds of kilometres from any network, and a brine pipeline with a thinned wall gives no warning before it fails. That is why we operate and maintain these installations on site, with our own personnel in the field.
Reverse Osmosis Water Treatment Plants
End-to-end technical operation, physical-chemical analysis of the water resource, and preventive and corrective maintenance plans for membranes, filters and dosing to secure critical flow at mine sites.
Mine site water is nothing like a municipal supply: it carries silica, hardness, iron and organic load in proportions that change with the well and with the season. Operating the plant means holding that balance every day, because a polyamide membrane does not forgive excess free chlorine and the damage is irreversible. We monitor the fouling index of the feed water, the dosing of reducing agent and antiscalant, permeate flow and differential pressure per stage, and we run clean-in-place when normalised readings call for it — before the loss of performance becomes permanent.
Critical Fluid Transport Networks
Operation and maintenance of piping and dedicated facilities for the transport of highly corrosive fluids such as brines and industrial acids.
Saturated brine and concentrated acid do not travel through ordinary pipe. We work on lines of high-density polyethylene, glass-reinforced polyester and lined carbon steel, each material with its own technique: butt and electrofusion welding, on-site lamination, liner verification and torqued flange assembly. Maintenance here is not a visual inspection: we measure wall thickness by ultrasound to know how much material is left before a line fails, and use thermography to find the friction or leak that is not yet visible. On these networks the point is not to repair quickly — it is not to have to repair at all.
Effluent Plant Operation and Maintenance
Operation and maintenance of industrial and sanitary effluent treatment plants, with operational control, preventive maintenance and compliance with provincial and national environmental regulations.
Camp sewage and process effluent are not treated the same way, and putting them through one circuit is a technical problem before it is a regulatory one. In biological treatment — activated sludge, sequencing batch or moving bed reactors — what you are looking after is a living bacterial community: dissolved oxygen, residence time and organic load. In physico-chemical treatment, coagulation, pH neutralisation and oil separation. We measure pH, dissolved oxygen, conductivity and settleable solids in the field, and send samples to an accredited laboratory for the parameters the authority requires. On the maintenance side: blowers, pumps, calibrated sensors and sludge removal with our own fleet.
Operational Environmental Management
Technical support for audits, documentation and environmental compliance in mining and industrial operations.
An Environmental Impact Statement commits to things that someone then has to carry out in the field, and the distance between what the file promises and what happens at the work front is exactly where findings appear. Because we operate the infrastructure, the documentation reflects what actually happens: survey of storage points and secondary containment, tracking of permit and certificate expiry dates, filing of manifests and final disposal certificates, and technical presence during the authority's inspection. That is the difference between a consultancy that delivers a report and an operator who is there the day the inspector arrives.
Guaranteed Suitability and Ongoing Certification
Our operating and environmental protocols reduce regulatory risk and strengthen quality audit approval in mining and industrial tenders.
One provider for the plant and for what comes out of it
Running a plant generates material that has to leave the site: sludge from biological treatment, reverse osmosis reject, maintenance oils. When the operator and the carrier are different suppliers, that material waits. We collect and transport it with our own licensed fleet and documented final disposal, and we cover with vacuum truck the emptying of ponds, cisterns and chambers within the plant itself. For the camp, sanitary provision is resolved with portable toilets including cleaning and disinfection. The permits covering each of these services are detailed in our current certifications and accreditations.
Frequently asked questions
- Do you operate the plant or only maintain it?
- Both, and they are contracted separately. We can take on day-to-day operation with personnel on site — parameter control, dosing, operating log — or step in only for preventive and corrective maintenance of a plant the client operates themselves. At remote sites the integrated arrangement is the usual one, because having the operator and the maintainer 400 kilometres apart does not work.
- What happens if the reverse osmosis plant stops?
- It depends how it was designed. A plant with parallel modular architecture lets you take one module out of service for chemical cleaning without cutting supply; a single-train plant does not. When we take part in the operating scheme, that is one of the first things reviewed, because it determines whether maintenance can be planned or whether every intervention is a shutdown.
- Do you work at altitude and in remote areas?
- Yes. Much of the region's mining operation sits above 3,000 metres and several hours from the nearest highway. Our coverage includes towns such as Antofagasta de la Sierra, in the Catamarca puna, with our own transport logistics.
- What happens to the sludge and the plant reject?
- It is collected, transported and disposed of under the same documented scheme as any other liquid waste. That is an advantage of having operation and logistics with the same provider: sludge leaving the plant does not sit waiting for a licensed carrier to appear.
- Do you assist during an environmental inspection?
- Yes. With technical presence on site during the inspection, assistance in drafting the record and, afterwards, in responding to findings with their action plan and deadlines. It is the part of the service most appreciated once the authority is already at the gate.