How to Budget a Pilot Plant Before You Have a Quotation
Most pilot budgets are built backwards from a supplier quotation, which means the number arrives too late to influence scope. A defensible budget can be built from the process duty instead, using ratios that hold across most hydrometallurgical pilots.
The build-up
| Element | Rule of thumb | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| Core equipment (reactors, SX, filters) | Basis | Quoted or estimated from duty |
| Instrumentation and control | 15–30% of equipment | Higher if data logging for scale-up is required |
| Piping, valves, fittings | 20–35% of equipment | Rises sharply with alloy choice |
| Skid/frame, bund, wiring | 15–25% of equipment | Often forgotten in first estimates |
| Installation and commissioning | 10–20% of equipment | Site-dependent; higher for retrofits |
| Contingency | 15–25% | Do not cut this — scope always grows |
Total installed pilot cost typically lands at 1.8–2.5 times the equipment price. If your estimate is below that, an item is missing.
How it relates to the full-scale plant
A pilot is not a miniature plant, and its cost does not scale linearly. A useful planning ratio: a pilot typically costs 5–15% of a demonstration plant of the same process, and a demonstration plant 10–20% of the commercial unit. The ratios shift with alloy, pressure and automation, but they give a sanity check when a quotation looks either too cheap or too expensive.
What to include that buyers usually forget
Effluent and off-gas. A leach pilot produces acid mist and a filtrate that cannot go to drain. Scrubber and neutralisation can add 10–20%.
Analytical support. If you cannot assay daily, the pilot will produce data you cannot defend. Budget for external lab work.
Operating consumables. Reagents, extractant, filter cloth and carbon are operating cost, but the first fill is often capitalised — and extractant can be a significant line item.
Presenting it internally
Split the budget into "must have" (the process train) and "scale-up enablers" (instrumentation, sampling points, variable drives). Approvers cut the second category first, and it is exactly what makes the pilot useful. Present them separately so the trade-off is explicit.
Send your duty and process route, and we will build a line-item budget with the assumptions shown.
Equipment referenced in this article
The third of the budget that is not equipment
A pilot plant budget built from equipment quotations typically covers 60 to 70 per cent of the real cost. The remainder is utilities and services, which for a solvent extraction pilot means power, compressed air, steam or a heater, cooling water and a fume extraction system; civils and bunding, which are always more than expected because a pilot needs containment; and analytical support, which is the item most often left out and the one that decides whether the campaign produces usable data.
Labour is the next line. A continuous pilot running 24 hours a day needs three shifts even if each shift is one person, and that is a cost that does not appear on any equipment quotation. Consumables for a month of SX operation, organic, acid, reagents, filter media, are typically 5 to 10 per cent of the equipment value. Adding a 30 per cent contingency on top of the equipment total, itemised into these categories rather than applied as a blanket percentage, is what makes a pilot budget survive contact with procurement.
Tell us your feed assay, flow rate and target recovery and we will size the unit: request a quote.