Processing

 

The plant is located immediately to the south of the Los Santos Sur pit close to existing mine workings, the main waste dump and other infrastructure. The plant is now processing 500k tpa and is primarily based on gravimetric separation, aimed at recovering a high grade scheelite concentrate, so as to provide a concentrate containing greater than 68% WO3.

 

Production during the three months ended June 30, 2015 rose 18.75% when compared to the three months ended March 31, 2015. The main plant is currently undergoing a meaningful expansion to debottleneck operations and boost concentrate grade and recoveries. This expansion has been rather rapid only beginning a few weeks ago and expected to be finished before the end of November. The extension is being added to the end of the main building closest to us in the photograph above (which was taken before work began). Below can be seen the frame that was up last week. Cladding is probably already finished by now. 

 

The latest additions will double throughput from the finishing circuit and remove what the company terms the “last bottleneck” in its process. It is expected that the extra pieces of kit to be housed in the extension will hike recoveries from 65% to 69% and boost the WO3 content from 63% to 67%. Output will rise from 5 tonnes per day to 5 ¾ tpd (therefore a 15% increase). The additional equipment has enhanced the ability to reprocess the tailings stockpiles.