CASE STUDY
Maricunga Mine: SART Plant Design for Heap Leach
OBJECTIVE
Process review and commissioning of plant under construction
TECHNOLOGIES
SART
PLANT CAPACITY
18,000 m³/day
LOCATION
Copiapó, Chile
BQE WATER SCOPE
Engineering review, identification of deficiencies, plant start-up, commissioning, plant optimization, operator training, operation manuals and standard operating procedures, technical support
PROJECT HIGHLIGHTS
- Up to 89% copper recovery and up to 94% cyanide recovery achieved
- Reduced cyanide consumption and operating costs in heap leach processing
Project Overview
With the SART plant design already underway, BQE Water was contracted by the mine owner to provide process review and commissioning services for a SART plant at an open pit gold mine operation with high copper concentrations in the heap leach.
The gold mine consists of a three-stage crushing, heap leach operation and ADR plant that processes 11 million tonnes of ore annually. From 2005 to 2011, copper concentrations in the leach solution increased from 50 ppm to more than 750 ppm as mining of gold ore with significant amounts of cyanide soluble copper progressed.
Cyanide soluble copper consumes the cyanide reagent used to extract gold from the crushed ore in the heap leach. This leads to a lock-up of cyanide and a contaminated leach solution, resulting in increased operating costs.
Located near the ADR facility, the SART plant was constructed to reduce copper levels in the heap leach. With a capacity of 18,000 m³/day, the SART plant treats a slipstream of the pregnant leach solution to recover the copper as a commercial grade concentrate and regenerate the cyanide for recycle back to the heap leach.
Project Flowsheet
