PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Operations at the Las Lagunas gold/silver project have been temporarily halted following the rupture of one of six Albion reactors at the plant, in the Dominican Republic.
ASX-listed PanTerra Gold on Tuesday said that no injuries were sustained during the incident, with the non-toxic slurry in the tank spilling into a purpose built, lined environmental pond.
Operations at Las Lagunas have now ceased while the damaged tank is removed and a structural engineer reviews the integrity of the remaining tanks.
PanTerra said that without the engineer’s report, it was not possible to determine when the process plant would be able to restart operations, though the project’s GM was currently predicting this would take between three and four weeks.
The process plant is able to operate efficiently at the budgeted throughput rates based on five tanks, so it is unlikely that the damaged tank will be replaced, the company said.