PERTH (miningweekly.com) – ASX-listed Mineral Commodities (MRC) has announced a step change at its Tormin mineral sands project, in South Africa, with the transition to 24 hours of operations to process Inland Strands ore.
The company said on Friday that the 24-hour operations were required to meet the Inland Strands' annual production target of 1.2-million tonnes a year from each primary concentrator plant.
“We are very pleased with the rapid transition to 24-hour operations; it is a great reflection on the efforts of the Mineral Sands resources (MSR) team,” said MRC interim CEO Adam Bick.
“We look forward to processing the Inland Strands heavy mineral concentrates (HMC) and producing saleable concentrates from the Inland Strands to increase Tormin production levels and sales revenues in line with MRC’s Heavy Minerals Division's Objectives.”
The primary concentrator plant is currently performing well on the Inland Strands ore, with throughput rates reaching close to the design rate of 150 t/h.
MRC said that the combination of debottlenecking and operator training supported the rapid transition to 24-hour operations, which will support further gains in plant availability through eliminating lost operating time on switchover between Inland Strands and beach materials as well as increased HMC production from the higher-grade Inland Strands ore.
With successful handling of Inland Strands ore and dewatering of the tailings, the focus will shift to optimising plant recoveries and throughputs.
Once sufficient HMC stocks have been generated, the Inland Strands HMC will be processed through the secondary plant to produce saleable concentrates. This is expected to occur in the coming weeks.