The Gold Mine processing plant will consist of two identical parallel circuits, collectively capable of
treating approximately half a million tonnes of saprolite ores per year.
This twin-stream design allows for
a degree of flexibility in plant operation and maintenance in the event of equipment failure, important in
this case as local infrastructure and maintenance support for heavy industry is virtually nonexistent.
Most of the ore is delivered from the pit to a stockpile/reclaim area, adjacent to the processing plant site
The ore blend is reclaimed from the stockpile and fed to two parallel mineral sizers, a type of crusher
designed to handle the softer ores.
The discharge from the mills is fed to cyclones, the overflow from
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which goes to the leach circuit where the pulp is subject to cyanide leaching while the underflow goes to
the regrind mills.
Following leaching, the pulp is fed to CIP adsorption tanks where the gold is absorbed
onto activated carbon
This ‘‘loaded’’ carbon is stripped of its gold and the gold bearing solution is
pumped to storage tanks.
s. The stripped carbon is regenerated in an oil fired kiln and then reused. After
leaching, the barren slurry after removal of the gold is pumped to the tailings dam 3 kilometres southeast
of the process plant for final disposal.
. The gold is recovered from the solution by electroplating onto
stainless steel wool cathodes. The cathodes are washed and the gold bearing sludge dried and placed in an
induction furnace for smelting to produce gold bullion
The recovery on the sulphide saprolite ore can be enhanced gravity circuit will be commissioned to treat a
portion of the cyclone underflow in the grinding circuit.
The circuit has allowed for improved recovery on
high grade oxide ores from the satellite pits that contain a significant coarser “nugget” gold fraction.
Following are the Ore reserves estimated for processing (based on test pit operations), Probable resources
are speculative and geologically favorable to have economic considerations that applied to them and
would allow a translation into reserves
