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REGIONAL NEWS - ASIA
Eldorado Completes Concentrate Treatment Plant at Kişladağ
Aerial view of Eldorado Gold's Kişladağ gold mine in Turkey, where a $354-million expansion program currently under way will raise processing capacity to 25 million mt/y of crushed material, plus 8 million mt/y of ROM material.
Eldorado Gold has commissioned a con- centrate treatment plant at its Kişladağ operations at Uşak, Turkey to process flota- tion concentrate from the company's Efemçukuru mine in Izmir province, Turkey. At year-end 2011, 9,100 mt of concentrate containing approximately 25,000 oz of gold had been delivered from Efemçukuru to Kişladağ. The new plant produced doré from this feed during the first week of January 2012.
During 2012, the stockpiled concentrate will be processed along with the planned 2012 production from Efemçukuru. The underground Efemçukuru mine was com- missioned and started up in the second quarter of 2011. During 2012, the Efemçukuru concentrator is scheduled to process 380,00 mt of ore at a grade of 10.12 g/mt gold. Capital expenditures at the mine for the year will total $30 million and will include $15.2 million for completion of the construction program, $7.6 million for underground capital development, and $1.8 million to construct a road to bypass a local village. Exploration will continue to focus on drill testing the Kestani Beleni northwest extension and Kokarpinar vein systems, with 12,000 m of drilling planned. Kişladağ is a low-grade, bulk-tonnage, open-pit operation using heap leaching for gold recovery. During 2012, the mine is scheduled to place 12.5 million mt of ore on the leach pad at a grade of 1.08 g/mt gold. The 12.5 million mt is the design capacity for new equipment commissioned in 2011. Capital spending at Kişladağ in 2012 is estimated at $175 million. Most of this is for the commencement of engineering works on an expansion project to take the
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processing rate up to 25 million mt/y of crushed material plus 8 million mt/y of run-of-mine material. The total cost for this project is $354 million and commissioning is expected during 2014. Exploration at Kişladağ in 2012 will be a continuation of the 2011 geophysical surveying for deep target generation, with diamond drill testing (10,000 m) of iden- tified targets.
Polyus Gold Starts Operations at Verninskoye Polyus Gold International announced at year-end 2011 it had successfully commis- sioned its Verninskoye open-pit mining and processing facility in the Irkutsk region of southeastern Siberia, Russia. After ramp-up during 2012, the current operation is expected to produce 260,000 oz/y of gold based on processing of 2.2 million mt/y of ore grading 2.7 g/mt gold. An expansion to 3.6 million mt/y of plant throughput is cur- rently under consideration.
Capital investment to develop the
Verninskoye project totaled $340 million. Construction began in 2009. Development activity included procurement of all neces- sary mining and haulage equipment and construction of roads, warehouses, a shift camp, and a tailings facility. Open-pit devel- opment required excavation of 5.3 million m3 of rock and 1.36 million mt of ore over the two-year period. Approximately 226,000 mt of the mined ore was processed at other Polyus processing facilities.
During the first half of 2012 the pro- cessing plant will operate using a flowsheet that provides for gravity concentrate genera- tion at the ore grinding circuit, with subse-
quent final processing to end product at the existing Polyus processing plant at Zapad- noye. During the second half of 2012, upon installation of flotation and hydrometallurgi- cal equipment, gold production will take place at the Verninskoye plant.
Pipeline Will Serve New Ma'aden Gold Mines The Saudi Arabian Mining Company, Ma'aden, signed a contract in mid-January 2012 for construction of a 430-km pipeline to carry treated waste water to planned new gold mines. The SR464 million (about $124 million) contract with Metal Services Co. for Trading and Contracting includes engineering, procurement, and construction services for the construction of a main pipeline from Taif to Ad Duwayhi and four other new potential mines. The 18-in.-diam- eter pipeline will have two pumping stations, mine-site storage facilities, and extensive communications and security systems. The pipeline will carry treated waste water from Taif NWC Sewage Treatment Plant to future mining operations at Ad Duwayhi, Mansourra, Massarra, As Suq, and Ar Rjum in the Central Arabian gold region. The region has estimated, JORC- compliant resources of 9 million oz of gold, at grades ranging from 1.34 to 2.43 g/mt. "The construction of this pipeline to an area with such significant resources is an essential step in Ma'aden's ambition to expand our gold production to 400,000 oz/y in 2015, and the use of treated waste water is proof of Ma'aden's commitment to minimizing impacts on the environ- ment," said Ma'aden President and CEO Khalid Al Mudaifer.
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