PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Copper miner Tiger Resources has reported record production during May, some 12 months after the Stage 2 solvent extraction and electrowinning (SX-EW) plant was introduced at its Kipoi project, in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The plant was commissioned in May 2014 and reached its nameplate capacity of 25 000 t/y of copper cathode in August of the same year. During May this year, the plant returned a record output of 2 306 t of copper cathode.
Tiger told shareholders on Thursday that with a full year of operations under its belt at the SX-EW plant, the company had identified areas where the plant could be debottlenecked to increase production and reduce operating costs.
The initiatives, which include minimising material rehandling by using an overland conveyor, the addition of extra electrowinning cells, and bringing forward the heavy mineral sands fines delivery through the addition of a small modular tank leach, would be assessed with a view to being rolled out over the next 12 months.