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By Steven Hart

In September 2009, Newmont began the commissioning of a 3 stage crushing and milling circuit at its Boddington Gold Operation in Western Australia. The Boddington ore has been recognized as one of the hardest and most abrasive ores treated to date and this played a pivotal role in the selection of crushing and HPGR technology for this operation as opposed to the more conventional SABC circuit. This paper will examine the scale up from laboratory to pilot plant and full scale operation of the crushing circuit. There have been many challenges to overcome in the first 18 months of operation; however, the HPGRs have in general met design expectations and performance is expected to improve further with ongoing design changes

Jan 1, 2012

By Brendan Parker, Tyron Rees, Steven Hart, Abba Manesh, Ian Mcgaffin

"In September 2009, Newmont began the commissioning of a 3 stage crushing and milling circuit at its Boddington Gold Operation in Western Australia. The Boddington ore has been recognized as one of the hardest and most abrasive ores treated to date and this played a pivotal role in the selection of crushing and HPGR technology for this operation as opposed to the more conventional SABC circuit.This paper will examine the scale up from laboratory to pilot plant and full scale operation of the crushing circuit. There have been many challenges to overcome in the first 18 months of operation; however, the HPGRs have in general met design expectations and performance is expected to improve further with ongoing design changes"

Jan 1, 2012

By M Hourn, D Turner, P Voigt, D Mallah

The GPM Gold Project is located in Armenia, and consists of an open cut mine at Zod, near the Azerbaijan border, and a CIL processing plant at Ararat near the Turkish border. Mining at Zod commenced in 1976, and focused on near surface oxide ores, which overlay deeper refractory sulphides. Historical mining has now almost depleted the oxide ores, and the sulphide content of ore delivered to the processing plant at Ararat is increasing. Gold and silver recoveries through the Ararat plant were declining steadily.GeoProMining, the owners of the project, have expanded the Ararat facility to deal with the increasing sulphide content in the ore. In 2014, GeoProMining refurbished an existing concentrator on site to recover a sulphide concentrate from the ore, and have constructed an Albion ProcessTM plant to oxidize the refractory concentrate. Glencore Technology (GT) provided the Albion ProcessTM plant as a technology package.In July 2014, the progress of the GPM Gold Project Albion ProcessTM Plant was reported (Hourn, Voigt and Turner, 2014). At the time of writing, the construction of the plant was nearly complete. This paper presents an update of project progress, covering commissioning and ramp up of the GPM Gold Project.The commissioning phase occurred over June to August 2014, which included an M3,000 IsaMillTM fine grinding plant, a 6 tph limestone milling plant, a 60 tpd vacuum pressure swing adsorption oxygen plant, a 10 m residue thickener and a 12 tph Albion ProcessTM oxidative leach plant. Since commissioning was completed, ramp up occurred over the following three months with downstream gold recoveries from cyanide leaching reaching over 98%.CITATION:Voigt, P, Hourn, M, Mallah, D and Turner, D, 2015. Commissioning and ramp-up of the Albion Process at the GPM Gold Project, in Proceedings MetPlant 2015, pp 207–219 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).

Sep 7, 2015

By Colin Hardie, Simon Pelletier, Rakan Rhabani, Guy Comeau

"In order to improve the nickel concentrate thickener operation at Raglan Mine, two pulp deaeration cyclones were installed. These units obtained from Outotec Pty Ltd, also called the FrothBuster®, have been in continuous operation since mid-October 2006. The primary objective of the de-aeration cyclones is to lower the solids content in the thickener overflow by de-aerating the concentrate pulp before it enters the concentrate thickener. This dearated slurry should help decrease the nickel particle losses that report to the thickener overflow because of the flotation effect within the thickener.Optimizing the de-aeration cyclones has been a slow and ongoing process, however, initial testing is encouraging. The latest test results indicate a 50 % reduction (0.070 to 0.035 % solids) in nickel losses to the concentrate thickener overflow resulting in an additional $350,000 in annual revenues.This paper will present an overview of installing the de-aeration cyclones within a limited space, as well as the preliminary commissioning and testing challenges. This paper will also discuss the most recent concentrate thickener operating results since the de-aeration units were installed.INTRODUCTIONThe Xstrata Nickel Raglan Concentrator, located at the northern limit of Quebec’s Nunavik Region has been in production since 1997. In early 2002, the concentrator implemented the Zero Process Water Discharge (ZPWD) project to recycle the process water to decrease fresh water consumption and reduce discharges to the environment. Due to this initiative, the chemistry of the process water changed significantly resulting in flotation concentrate streams, which were very frothy and difficult to manage. This phenomenon has resulted in operational challenges in many areas of the concentrator including slurry pumping, flow measurement and concentrate thickening.In October 2005, the Raglan Mine underwent a conversion from an AG mill to a SAG mill operation in order to increase throughput and to optimize key process areas. As part of this project, the first two North American pulp de-aeration (FrothBuster®) units from Outotec were installed to improve the operation of the concentrate thickener. The primary objective of the deaeration technology was to lower the solids content in the thickener overflow by de-aerating the concentrate thickener feed pulp. This in turn was to reduce the froth, which accumulates on the thickener surface, and more importantly reduce valuable nickel losses to the thickener overflow because of the flotation effect within the thickener."

Jan 1, 2008

By F. Calizaya

The PT Freeport Indonesia‘s Deep Ore Zone(DOZ) copper deposit is located in the province of Irian-Jaya, Indonesia. Currently, a block cave mine is being developed around this deposit. Production is scheduled to start in year 2000 and to ramp up to25,000 tpd by year 2003. The air quantity requirement for this mine is equal to 780 m3/s. To supply this quantity, the mine will require five centrifugal fans (one 450 and four 750 kW fans). This study summarizes the technical aspects related to the installation and commissioning of one of these fans. The fan was installed on the surface in a parallel arrangement with two others. It has a design capacity of 240 m3/s of air at 2.2 kPa of static pressure. The study presents the installation details from the underground shaft excavation and portal development through fan testing and commissioning. It also presents the results of a monitoring system that was installed to determine the fan duties.

Jan 1, 2000

By N. Romani, R. Provost

"Commissioning of a circulating dry scrubber (CDS) plant was recently completed at an existing facility in Québec, Canada. The CDS plant treats the sulphur dioxide off-gas emitted from rotary kilns in order to meet increasingly stringent environmental requirements. This installation enables the existing facility to reduce their sulphur emissions by over 90%.Proper planning of the different commissioning stages and staffing an integrated team are the most important factors required for a successful plant start-up. A strong Operational Readiness plan must be in place as early as the start of construction in order to ensure a smooth transition from commissioning to operations. Plant performance can meet or exceed performance criteria within the required timeframe if the proper group dynamic and good communication is established between construction, commissioning and operations teams.The road blocks encountered are often from systems that one assumes will operate without trouble such as air-conditioning, or design assumptions that were taken years earlier in feasibility process stages, namely the capacity of existing systems that will connect the new plant to the existing facilities. The challenges associated with rectifying these issues in addition to the requirements to properly start-up and operate a new plant without impacting production are great, and it is imperative to have the necessary resources to react quickly to any problems.IntroductionCommissioning of a circulating dry scrubber (CDS) plant was recently completed at an existing facility in Québec, Canada. The CDS plant treats the sulphur dioxide off-gas emitted from rotary kilns in order to meet increasingly stringent environmental requirements. This installation enables the existing facility to reduce their sulphur emissions by over 90%.The CDS ProcessA general overview of the CDS process is presented in Figure 1 below. The combined, de-dusted off-gas from multiple kilns is sent to the CDS, which acts as an entrained fluid bed, where the gas is contacted with a water mist, re-circulated solids and hydrated lime. The SO2 from the gas stream and the available calcium hydroxide (Ca(OH)2) from the hydrated lime dissolve in the water and react to ultimately form calcium sulphites and gypsum. The solid residue (referred to as CDS residue), is the primary by-product of the process."

Jan 1, 2016

By Niels Verbaan, Ernesto Bourricaudy, Ronald Molnar, James Brown, Sunil Jayasekera

"SGS Minerals commissioned an internal R&D program to develop in-house expertise to design, set up and operate REE separation pilot campaigns at its Lakefield, Canada site. A team approach was used that included expert consultants in the field of REE separation as well as in-house expertise supported by the on-site Analytical Laboratories.A mini pilot scale SX circuit was designed and constructed consisting of several modular banks of 30 stages each. About 80 stages of mixer-settlers were used to separate Pr and Nd from La and Ce contained in a synthetic REE chloride stream simulating the raffinate from an initial La-Nd|Sm-Lu+Y separation.Two pilot campaigns were operated totalling 25 days of 24/7 operation with 99.4% plant availability in the final 20 day campaign. Purities of > 99.9% in the Pr-Nd strip liquor and > 99% in the La- Ce raffinate were achieved and simultaneously sustained in the second campaign for prolonged operating periods. Key to controlling and adjusting the circuit was the rapid assay turnaround (as low as 2 hours) provided by the on-site SGS analytical lab. This permitted the operating team to modify conditions and observe the effect of changes relatively quickly considering the large number of stages. A portable XRF analyser was also used to track evolving assay trends in the circuit. The small physical size of the circuit enabled longer operation with a limited amount of sample.This paper discusses the design of the circuit, operating conditions, some of the key operating factors and controls and results obtained.INTRODUCTIONSGS Minerals commissioned the design of and built a solvent extraction (SX) pilot plant for the separation of rare earth elements (REE). The plant consists of a battery of 120 mixer-settlers set up in a dedicated piloting facility.The purpose of the programme was to develop capabilities and in-house expertise in REE SX separation technology. The program aimed to establish operating procedures, sampling regimes, and analytical methodologies and protocols for this type of process/plant. A team comprised of SGS personnel and several external consultants with prior industrial and REE separation piloting experience was assembled to achieve these objectives."

Jan 1, 2016

By Jones M

The concept of precise, accurate timing with Electronic Delay Detonators (EDDs) was first seriously addressed in the mid-1980s and much was made of the cheapness and profusion of digital watches in terms of the likelihood of EDDs also being cheap and easy to produce. Ten years later, with every major explosives company and many electronics groups having instituted projects to capitalise on the promise of these devices, production devices are still to come into general use. In South Africa, Expert Explosives units have been used in most applications during proving trials and more recently for production blasting in underground ring stoping and open cast coal. The outcome has been valuable learning both as to the benefits and technical requirements for electronic delay blasting, and especially, safety aspects. Examples are shown of production blasts which utilised the power of EDDs. It is evident that it is not delay accuracy alone which determines the value of these systems, but the whole robustness, flexibility and ease of delay allocation when harnessing blast engineering knowledge. Muckpile movement and shape, fragmentation and vibration frequencies have shown to be greatly influenced by designs which can be implemented no other way. The flexibility of a system and the power of the software controlling it are crucial in capitalising on blasting potential, which lies in integrating control of blast timing with other developing electronic Technologies.

Jan 1, 1995

By T Wootton

The Barrytown ilmenite pilot plant was commissioned in two stages using Westport Titanium Project heavy mineral concentrate. The wet concentrator was commissioned on the 17 December 1989 and produced magnetic concentrate from this date.   The Drymill was commissioned on the 27 January 1990 and produced product grade ilmenite successfully from the onset.   The commissioning period was exceptionally short by normal standards and few problems were encountered. This paper concludes with general observations of operations of the pilot plant.

Jan 1, 1990

By M. Savella

The Runruno Gold Project is located on the island of Luzon, approximately 200 km north of Manilla in the Philippines. The mine is a surface mine operation and use the proven BIOX® and carbon in leach processes to recover gold, and the ASTER™ process for detoxification of the CIL residue prior to discharge to the Residue Storage Impoundment (RSI). Work to date has defined a mineral resource of 1.39 million ounces of gold, and the operation will produce 96,700 ounces of gold per annum over a mine life of 10.4 years. The BIOX® circuit is designed to treat 140,000 tpa of concentrate with a design capacity of 404 tpd of concentrate at a design sulphide sulphur grade of 17% S2-. The Runruno project is the first BIOX® plant to implement the Generation III BIOX® design principles. As part of the Generation III BIOX® program Outotec supplied a turnkey, containerised metallurgical laboratory to facilitate the first four stages of the BIOX® and ASTER™ inoculum build up requirements. BIOX® inoculum build-up was started during early January 2015 with 5 litres of stock cultures shipped from South Africa. The BIOX® culture was successfully adapted to concentrate produced from the mini plant during March 2015. The ASTER™ inoculum build-up commenced during early August 2015 utilising 27 litres of ASTER™ bacterial inoculum already adapted to similar process conditions expected during commercial operation. This paper will detail the various stages of inoculum build-up through to commissioning and ramp-up of the BIOX® and ASTER™ Processes at the Runruno Gold Project. The paper will highlight some of the factors affecting the commissioning process as well as the improvements seen through the introduction of the Generation III BIOX® design principles.

Jan 1, 2017

By Mike Rylatt

"The BHP Diamonds Inc. and Blackwater Group (Dia Met Minerals Ltd., Charles Fipke and Stewart Blusson) joint venture began production at Canada=s first diamond mine during the last quarter of 1998.Construction of the processing plant began in mid 1997. During the 1998 winter season, the heavy process plant equipment was delivered to the Ekati site, 300 km NE of Yellowknife, by the ice road. Towards mid 1998 the construction activities were complete and commissioning began. The mine officially opened in October 1998.Initial production of 9000 tpd kimberlite will be from the Panda pipe grading 1.09 ct/t at an average value of US$13O/ct.Processing starts with a gyratory crusher reducing the ROM kimberlite to 90% passing 15Omm before further reduction to minus 75mm in a WaterFlush crusher. The crusher product discharges into a 4m diameter x 7m long primary scrubber. After screening, the minus 75 +1 mm kimberlite is conveyed to a 250 ft feed bin ahead of the 1.7 m diameter x 1.1 m wide high pressure grinding roll. The HPGR produces 50% minus lmm in a single pass, the compacted flake product is dis-agglomerated in a secondary scrubber. The scrubber product is screened into a minus 25 +lmm heavy medium separation plant feed and conveyed to a 375t HMS feed bin ahead of two 150 HMS modules. Milled 270D ferrosilicon at a slurry density of 2.6 g/cc and HMS feed are pumped to three 420mm diameter cyclones. Heavy mineral concentrates, approximately 1 % of the plant headfeed, are pneumatically transported to the Recovery plant for final diamond recovery using wet high intensity magnetic separators and high intensity (attrition) milling prior to three stages of x-ray recovery. At full production, Ekati will produce approximately 2 kg/day of diamonds.This paper details the later commissioning phase and the first three months Oof operational activities during the build up to full production at the Ekati processing plant."

Jan 1, 1999

By Tad Crowie, Victor Delgado, Nick Katsikaros, Tim Hughes

"A number of silver producers have identified a need for a system to recover silver and gold from base metal flotation concentrates on site rather than sending the concentrate to third party smelters to improve mine economics. Historically intensive cyanidation has only been used for coarse gold gravity concentrates in batch machines but Gekko have applied the InLine Leach Reactor (ILR) to these difficult to leach concentrates.The ILR’s unique ability to operate at various solid to solution ratios, high mass capacity, the ability to handle fines, the use of peroxide to aid silver leach kinetics and simple operation has resulted in significant economic benefits to Hochschild PLC’s Selene and Arcata operations. This paper describes the commissioning phase of the ILR5000BA intensive cyanidation reactors on concentrates from the Selene mine at the Ares Concentrator.INTRODUCTIONIntensive leaching of high grade concentrates in gold ore treatment is now commonplace and is considered an essential feature of most gold circuits (Lane, Fountain and LeBrooy, 2008). The devices commonly used for intensive leaching (InLine Leach Reactor, Acacia Reactor, etc) are specifically designed for the typical coarse nature of the concentrate.In some of these intensive leach applications, significant amounts of silver are co-recovered with the gold. In fact, the intensive leaching conditions of 1 to 2% NaCN in solution and high dissolved oxygen levels, overcome the issue with silver’s slow dissolution rate in traditional CIL/CIP circuits and avoids the formation of insoluble silver sulphide minerals on the surface of the gold (Marsden, 2006).There are a significant number of mine operators producing silver in the form of mixed base metal sulphides flotation concentrates. Typically the mine operators are paid for the silver after processing of the concentrate by the base metal smelter whom recovers the silver during the refining process."

Jan 1, 2010

By J Seppelt

The Kanmantoo Copper Project is owned and operated by Hillgrove Resources Limited and is situated in the Adelaide Hills region in South Australia. Mining in the area has taken place off and on over the last 140 years to recover metal from both copper and lead-zinc ores. This paper focuses on the commissioning, ramp up and future outlook for the copper concentrator at the Kanmantoo Copper Project with major focus on issues encountered and operating performance achieved to date.CITATION:Seppelt, J, 2012. Commissioning of the Kanmantoo Copper Concentrator, in Proceedings 11th AusIMM Mill OperatorsÆ Conference, pp 127-136 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).

Oct 29, 2012

By R Young, D OÆSullivan

When Centaur Mining and Exploration produced nickel metal fromlaterite ore at its Cawse nickel project in January 1999, a new era in the nickel industry was heralded in. One of three new laterite projects commissioned that year, new technology and a unique process design has been combined at Cawse to launch what will be amongst the worldÆs cheapest nickel production. However, the road to success has proven to be long and challenging. This paper explores CentaurÆs approach to the Cawse start-up and discusses a number of issues that have been confronted and overcome. * Originally published in the Proceedings of the Seventh MillOperatorsÆ Conference, published by The AusIMM.

Jan 1, 2001

By G. A. Brown

Major mining projects are developed with the assistance of lending institutions who provide hundreds of millions of dollars in funding over several years, and of course expect those funds to be returned with interest. Two Australian banks have adopted the Equator Principles, an emerging financial industry benchmark for assessing and managing environmental and social risk in project financing. Project financiers have encountered environmental and social issues that are both complex and challenging, particularly with respect to projects in the emerging markets of Asia-Pacific and elsewhere. There are many recent and historical examples of failures by resource companies to effectively manage their environmental, social, safety and security risks, some of which have caused the project to fail completely, and some of which have caused the temporary cessation of production. These events put the financial institutions' funds at risk through inadequate management capacity and non-compliance adversely affecting the ability of the borrowers to repay the loans. They can also reflect adversely on the reputation of the lending institutions. In assessing these risks, lenders are increasingly looking at the track record of the borrower in its country of origin and in other countries where it operates. Lenders are wary of companies that have one standard for operations in a developed country, where the regulatory environment may tightly control what they do, and another standard for operations in countries where the regulatory regime is perhaps less stringent. Lenders may require environmental and social reviews or audits to be conducted on their behalf by competent third parties prior to a loan being approved, and annually over the life of the relationship. The mining industry's concept of the unwritten `social licence to operate' is highly relevant in relation to the delivery of community benefits that are sustainable post-mine closure. This paper provides examples of recent practices that support financial viability and sustainable development, as well as examples of some failures that have put lenders at risk.

Jan 1, 2007

By G S. C Murray

Major mining projects are developed with the assistance of lending institutions who provide hundreds of millions of dollars in funding over several years, and of course expect those funds to be returned with interest. Two Australian banks have adopted the Equator Principles, an emerging financial industry benchmark for assessing and managing environmental and social risk in project financing. Project financiers have encountered environmental and social issues that are both complex and challenging, particularly with respect to projects in the emerging markets of Asia-Pacific and elsewhere. There are many recent and historical examples of failures by resource companies to effectively manage their environmental, social, safety and security risks, some of which have caused the project to fail completely, and some of which have caused the temporary cessation of production. These events put the financial institutionsÆ funds at risk through inadequate management capacity and non-compliance adversely affecting the ability of the borrowers to repay the loans. They can also reflect adversely on the reputation of the lending institutions. In assessing these risks, lenders are increasingly looking at the track record of the borrower in its country of origin and in other countries where it operates. Lenders are wary of companies that have one standard for operations in a developed country, where the regulatory environment may tightly control what they do, and another standard for operations in countries where the regulatory regime is perhaps less stringent. Lenders may require environmental and social reviews or audits to be conducted on their behalf by competent third parties prior to a loan being approved, and annually over the life of the relationship. The mining industryÆs concept of the unwritten æsocial licence to operateÆ is highly relevant in relation to the delivery of community benefits that are sustainable post-mine closure. This paper provides examples of recent practices that support financial viability and sustainable development, as well as examples of some failures that have put lenders at risk.

Jan 1, 2007

By Dean McDonald

The Committee Bay Greenstone Belt extends over 300km and is one of the largest unexplored greenstone belts in North America with excellent gold and diamond potential. Committee Bay Resources Limited holds over 550,000 acres of land with prospective geology in the Committee Bay area southwest of Melville Peninsula, Nunavut. Committee Bay is a typical Archean greenstone belt comparable to the Yellowknife, Red Lake, Kirkland Lake and other prolific gold belts. Drilling during 2003 at Committee Bay resulted in: 1) the discovery of high-grade gold-bearing quartz veins with silicification and sulphidation at Three Bluffs, and 2) the continuation of high-grade gold mineralization in the hinge area of the iron formation at Inuk. Gold mineralization at Three Bluffs is identified in iron formation and adjacent sediments and has been traced by drilling for over 700m. The Three Bluffs iron formation is open to depth and along strike where is has been traced on surface for over 6km. In January 2004 Committee Bay and joint venture partner Gold Field?s announced a $7.1 million exploration program for the Committee Bay project in 2004. A total of 8,000m in exploration drilling has been approved for the expansion of the Three Bluffs to the resource stage and drilling of at least five new target areas. Additional mapping, sampling and geophysics will be used to identify new gold targets along the very prospective Committee Bay belt.

May 1, 2004

Executive A R LEDOUX, Chairman ARTHUR S DWIGHT CHARLES F RAND E P MATHEWSON J V W REYNDERS Membership E DEGOLYER, Chairman W Y WESTERVELT, Vice-chairman WILLIAM H BASSETT H G MOULTON C MINOT WELD Finance WALTER H ALDRIDGE, Chairman GEORGE D BARRON GALEN H CLEVENGER Library GEORGE C STONE,' Chairman JOHN H JANEWAY ALEXANDER C HUMPHREYS, ROBERT LINTON FREDERICK F SHARPLESS

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