PERTH (miningweekly.com) – ASX-listed mineral sands miner Mineral Deposits on Monday reported that the ramp-up of its Grande Cote project, in Senegal, was advancing ahead of design.
Mining at the project first started in late March this year, with sand being processed through the wet concentrator plant. However, in mid-April, the mechanical failure of seals on two major pumps caused a near month downtime for the plant.
However, Mineral Deposits noted that since mining has restarted, the newly installed mechanical seals have operated trouble-free.
The wet concentrator plant has been operating on full capacity, and has consistently improved output, the miner said. In recent weeks, feed rates above 4 000 t/h have been recorded, for several days, with heavy mineral concentrate production reaching between 1 200 t to 1 400 t.
Full nameplate capacity for the plant was estimated at 7 000 t/h.
Mineral Deposits said that it could effectively take some 12 months to reach full production rates at a steady-state basis, with feed rates through the wet concentrator plant to be restricted over the next few months as tails were pumped through land-based lines off the mine path, to enable the size of the dredge pond to be increased.
Meanwhile, the wet plant at the mineral separation plant had also had its first production run, operating close to design for both throughput and yield. Mineral Deposits was hoping to run both its non-magnetic and magnetic concentrates through the dry plant over the next few weeks.
Grande Côte was anticipated to produce on average approximately 85 000 t/y of zircon and 575 000 t/y of ilmenite when in full production, making it the largest new mineral sands project currently under construction. The project would have an initial mine-life of 20 years.