PRE-FEASIBILITY STUDY OF A MOBILE PROCESSING PLANT FOR BENTONITE MINES IN SOUTH KHORASAN PROVINCE

Bentonite is an industrial soil with thousands of applications. Most of the Iranian bentonite mines, especially the mines of South Khorasan province, which is the center of the Iranian bentonite, are operating in a semi-closed or limited operation due to lack of reserves and dispersion. The construction of mobile processing plants will boost these mines, create added value, create jobs in deprived areas and make proper use of the country's reserves. In addition, flexibility, reducing the cost of transporting raw materials, the need for low investment, quick and easy installation and improving the knowledge of equipment manufacturing and mining are also the most important advantages of these processing plants. A mobile processing plant to produce bentonite concentrate requires primary crushing (jaw crusher), secondary crushing (impact crusher), heavy intermediate separator (cyclone or Dyna whirlpool), drying (rotary dryer), grinding (roller mill), packaging, power supply and control and monitoring units, that each of them can be mounted on a trailer. Technical and economic studies show that such a mobile processing plant with a capacity of 200 tons per day requires about 530 billion rials of fixed capital and about 30.5 billion rials of working capital. Also, the annual operating costs of this project are estimated at about 180 billion rials. With these specifications, the plan will have a payback period of 1.8 years, a positive net present value and an internal rate of return of 48%, which is appropriate and cost-effective in terms of investment. Also, the most important risks of this plan in terms of investment include operating processes, exchange rate fluctuations and prices. Other parameters of this plan are medium and low risk>