Minerals Processing & Plant Design
Projects:​
Nolan’s Gold Mine - Australia
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This project was a “design and construct” gold plant bid nationally by MIM (now Glencore) on behalf of the joint venture partners. Fraser-Lever was awarded a $24 Million lump sum turnkey project for the design and construction of the Nolans CIL Gold Processing Plant. The plant was designed to treat 2Mtpa of oxide ore at an expected grade of 2.0 grams/tonne to produce approximately 120, 000 ounces per year. The ore is hard and abrasive.
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While initial throughput was 2Mtpa with primary and secondary crushing, sag mill, ball mill and scats crusher. The plant was designed so that it could be expanded to 4 million tonnes per annum.
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After Placer Dome’s Kidston Mine closed the Client installed redundant equipment and the plant was expanded.
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The Client later installed additional equipment and the plant was expanded to 5Mtpa.
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BHP Billiton Cannington – Growth Project Feasibility Study + Expansion
Cannington was the largest silver mine in the world and in 2002 it produced around 36 Million ounces in concentrate.
Fines “Split Flotation” Plant
The project separated the minus 5 micron material from the 300TPH process stream and separately treated the material before blending the resulting concentrates back with the main process stream. The detailed design and construction was undertaken immediately after the feasibility study and the plant was commissioned on time and below budget. Capital value $10 Million. The plant increased recovery by around 3%.
Growth Project Feasibility Study + Expansion
Fraser-Lever undertook the capital cost estimate and detail design of $32 Million surface works component of the $130 Million Northern Ore Body Expansion including the minerals processing component of the expansion project.
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Equipment installed includes:
200TPH scats crushing facility, two Vertimills (including a 1,500kW version – the largest built to date refer photo on right), cyclones, additional flotation capacity, paste fill conveyor control systems, reagent and acid storage tanks, pumps, piping, foundations, concrete and structures.
The construction was scheduled so that tie-ins to the existing plant would occur during scheduled shut downs of the operating plant.
BHP Billiton - GEMCO
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Projects undertaken include:
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Structural designs, fuel farm upgrade, quarry dewatering, tails dam and decant tower design, dump station upgrades, design of mobile reclaim hopper car, concentrator modifications, conveyor designs and modifications, sand tails disposal procedure, water reclamation from tailings dams, provision of on-site engineers, studies for increased capacity of crusher station, Hitachi boom strain gauging, design and supply of a fall arrest davit, STP202 redesign, STP205 redesign and various other projects for the reliability team.
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Yabulu Nickel Refinery Cobalt Oxy Hydroxide Plant - Townsville
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Fraser-Lever, in association with Kvaerner Metals, undertook the feasibility study followed by the construction of the Cobalt Oxy Hydroxide Plant. The plant process was based on Nickel Refinery’s process research and involved leaching, solvent extraction and concentrate filtering stages to produce required products. Variations to products could be obtained by modifications to the process to suit particular client requirements.
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Ok Tedi
EPCM for the installation of 2 off Metso VPA vertical plate pressure filters for dewatering of around 750,000 tonnes of copper concentrate per year.
EPCM of the new reagent storage and dosing facility and the conversion of CIL tanks to agitated storage tanks for pyrite tailings and works associated with 130 km tailings pipeline.
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EPCM of a sub-aqueous pyrite tailings disposal system to distribute tailings evenly over the containment dam.This process prevents formation of acid rock drainage which occurs when the tailings are exposed to air. The equipment design has now been used in mines in Laos and Vietnam.
EPCM for the conversion of two off 50 metre diameter thickeners to high rate thickeners for the separation of acid producing pyrite tailings.
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Design, construction supervision and commissioning of the gravity gold/copper concentrate circuit. This plant is currently shut down but, while operating, it processed, dried and packed (in 20 kilo drums) a statistically uniform product of approximately 200 tonnes per annum of 99% copper 1% gold concentrate. Process included dewatering, drying, blending and packing for shipping.
Lihir Gold Mine
Engineering, Procurement + Construction Management for the installation of an additional 38 metre high compression thickener to increase density of autoclave feed. The Company also undertook the EPCM design and construction of a gravity concentration and high intensity cyanidation circuit.
Value US$21 Million
Glencore Oaky Creek Coal Preparation Plant Upgrade
This was completed in two stages to increase throughput from 650TPH to 1,350TPH and included the installation of: Jameson flotation, 2-off 110M2 belt filters. Design throughput was achieved within 24 hours of commencement of commissioning of the third module.
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Other works included:
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Upgrading of the existing breaker station from 1,100TPH to 2,000TPH.
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Magnetic Separator Installation
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New chutes to each of the breakers, vibratory feeders, multi-slope screens, magnetic separators, conveyors etc.
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Redesign of flotation cells, Flocculant storage, mix and distribution. Feasibility design and costing for fourth module of CHPP
Simberi Gold Company (Simberi Island PNG)
Plant Expansion+ Power Station Replacement + Fuel Storage
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Fraser-Lever undertook the EPCM component for the expansion of the existing oxide gold treatment plant on Simberi Island.
The scope of work includes the following:
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New material sizing plant at the mine feeding onto the rope conveyor
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Installation of a stockpile conveyor to feed a large live stockpile. Replacing the need for front end loader reclaim
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Installation of a reclaim tunnel complete with apron feeder to provide feed to the new grinding circuit
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New grinding circuit incorporating SAG mill, SER unit, feed conveyor, cyclones and with the capacity to be able to utilise the existing ball mill in series if required, for increased throughput. The SAG mill has a liner handler
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Two additional leach tanks in order to provide the required residence time for gold dissolution. The existing tanks will all be converted to pulp tanks
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A new carbon safety screen and tails box is required for the increased throughput. The existing loaded carbon screen is to be raised in order to be able to feed the revised elution layout which will consist of two columns in series (one for acid washing and one for elution)
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A new pregnant liquor tank will be installed as part of the upgrade as well as two additional electrowinning cells
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A tailings thickener is included to recover cyanide liquid and recirculate it
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A cyanide destruction circuit has also been included together with the required reagent mixing facility for cyanide destruction. The discharge from the cyanide destruction circuit will report to the existing deep-sea tails disposal tank
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Other facilities include new high and low pressure air, additional process water pumps and raw water pumps, a fire protection system for the plant, electrical system upgrade to accommodate the 11kV drive on the new SAG mill complete with new motor control centres, transformers and low voltage distribution. The upgraded system will utilise the same control system as the existing plant
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Commissioning of the plant including performance testing
Mt Moss Mine
The mine at Mt Moss mines predominantly iron ore however there is also a copper and zinc deposit. The work carried out by Fraser-Lever to date has been for the iron ore beneficiation plant which has included a 3 stage crushing plant, grinding mills and both dry and wet beneficiation plants. The iron ore is magnetite and is sold as lump, fines or as metallurgical magnetite for use in coal prep plants.
The scope of work has included a 3 stage crushing plant, dry beneficiation using magnetic separators and this section has included conveyor systems feeding the magnetic separators and then conveyor systems conveying both product and waste away from the area and into various stockpiles. The wet beneficiation plant is fed from a stockpile and consists of cyclones, screens, spirals and jigs to remove the fine non-magnetic particles.
The plant currently produces approximately 2,000,000 TPA of iron ore and some 500,000 TPA of “weight coat” material used for coating under-sea pipelines.
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