Direct costs
Corrosion directly costs the global economy $80,000 USD/sec (materials, labour, equipment) [NACE Impact Study 2016]. ICE often finds that direct corrosion costs are embedded in maintenance budgets (or other) and clients do not have transparency on what their financial risks are. There is little transparency and data capture.
Once we start to measure it, ICE Dragon sees a wide variation in the maintenance budgets of operating mines due to corrosion but we have seen a range from $1-10M / yr. However, this number is a function of many factors: ore type, location, geography, water source, design, plant age/size etc.
Indirect costs
ICE has found that indirect costs for our clients (e.g. from production shutdowns, clean up costs etc) can be at least a similar order of magnitude versus direct costs – if not significantly higher and again these vary. Examples of indirect costs include:
- One process tank failure, partial circuit SD = $5M
- Single pipe failure in an autoclave circuit = $50M
- Production losses from corrosion failures = $15-20 M/yr (one mine)
Companies that are unable to manage the hidden degradation risks to their critical assets will have more to lose. They will:
- Have asset failures
- Experience production impact
- Lose their social license to operate
- Have lower share price
Companies who successfully manage physical asset degradation risk are winners. They will:
- Be risk informed
- Have a transparent and predictive view to performance and costs
- Optimize decision making in line with their Sustainability goals
- Be more resilient