CAPACITY RECOVERY IN A LOW-GRADE PHOSPHATE CONCENTRATOR: A SCALABLE OPTIMIZATION APPROACH VIA CALIBRATED DYNAMIC SIMULATION AND STRATEGIC DEBOTTLENECKING *M. Loayza1, E. Rodriguez2, G. Rivest3 1 Hatch Asociados S.A., Lima, Peru (*Presenting author: marco.loayza@hatch.com) 2 Compañía Minera Miski Mayo S.R.L, Piura, Perú, 3 Hatch Ltd., Montreal, Canada ABSTRACT The progressive decline in ore grade represents a major threat to the continuity and economic performance of mineral processing operations. This paper presents a Stochastic Discrete Event Simulation (DES) methodology to recover throughput capacity in a phosphate concentrator facing a feed grade reduction from 18.2% to 15.0% P₂O₅. A high-fidelity simulation model was developed and calibrated using 2024 plant data, with two-parameter Weibull distributions fitted to more than 50 asset groups, resulting in a global throughput deviation below 0.85%. Seventeen operating and investment scenarios were evaluated to assess the plant response to a projected 76% increase in mass pull. The results show that, once the new volumetric and solids transport demands are incorporated, the dominant bottlenecks shift toward three critical infrastructure groups: ore transport and feed conveyors, led by the overland conveyor system (TR1090); primary cyclone feed pumping circuits (BP-2020); and screening/classification stages (PN2020). Among the alternatives assessed, Alternative 4 was identified as the optimal investment point, enabling 4.96 Mtpa at a Unitary Value at Cost (VAC) of USD 1.07/t. Probabilistic simulation further demonstrates that the likelihood of meeting the 2030 production target is below 15% unless these constraints are selectively removed. The study confirms that DES is not only effective for identifying bottleneck migration under changing ore conditions, but also for prioritizing capital in debottlenecking strategies that improve robustness and long-term plant performance. KEYWORDS Dynamic simulation, debottlenecking, phosphate processing, brownfield optimization, capital effectiveness.
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