Engineering and Mining Journal - Whether the market is copper, gold, nickel, iron ore, lead/zinc, PGM, diamonds or other commodities, E&MJ takes the lead in projecting trends, following development and reporting on the most efficient operating pr
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RUSSIAN PLATINUM 48 E&MJ; • APRIL 2016 www.e-mj.com desired price," Bazhaev said. "Now I see an IPO no earlier than 2018." Improving Effectiveness in Multiple Directions During the last fi ve years, RT manage- ment has been conducting moderniza- tion programs for production processes at the Kondyor deposit to increase the effi ciency of mining operation and re- duce the costs per ton. According to Kazbek Bazhaev, CEO of AS Amur, a subsidiary of RP which manages the development of Kondyor, the techni- cal experience obtained will allow the company to be more effi cient during the implementation of a project in Krasnoyrsk Krai. "First of all, we are talking about re-evaluation of the composition of tail- ings," Bazhaev said. "Estimation of the residual platinum in tailings strongly de- pends on the processing technology." He pointed out that new methods have been developed for dredging and tailings processing and construction of a mobile processing plant. In 2013, a plant for ex- traction of fi ne platinum was launched at the deposit. "The tailings contain a lot of platinum, which is not visible to the naked eye," Bazhaev said. "Our mobile factory will be able to extract these fi ne particles." In 2013, he estimated PGMs recovery of 85%, which means 15% reported to tailings. The long-term strategy is to re- duce this fi gure to 5%. This will enable RP to produce an additional 300-400 kg/y of platinum. There are four key stages of produc- tion from mine to end product. The fi rst is pre-stripping and the preparation of pro- duction blocks. This work is performed mainly from October to May prior to the platinum production season, which is limited due to extreme winter conditions. Platinum-bearing ore is extracted and concentrated on site. The concentrate is shipped to a refi nery. The company has introduced some IT solutions for the mining process. Since 2013, GPS has been installed on 130 haul trucks, excavators, bulldozers and drilling machines, as well as 73 pieces of auxiliary equipment. The entire fl eet is connected with the company's offi ce in Khabarovsk. "Through the introduction of an auto- matic dispatch system, key performance indicators can be monitored online di- rectly from the central offi ce," said Kaz- bek Bazhaev. "Servers in Khabarovsk and Conder are synchronized via satellite link. All of the equipment has special sensors that transmit data to the control system with the information on how much rock is loaded, how fast and on what route the vehicle moves." He also explained that this control sys- tem completely eliminated unreasonable delays and minimized delays for techni- cal reasons. In addition to improving the effectiveness of logistics, it reduced fuel costs by 15%. "The dredging method is relatively inexpensive," Kazbek Bazhaev said. "Im- provements made to the mobile plant, the dredging machine, for processing raw materials to the point where it could be sent to the refi nery, is another important point in terms of improving company's profi tability." However, according to Amur's manage- ment, shifting to dredging will not happen before the end of 2016, as the compa- ny previously planned to use equipment from a local manufacturer from Irkutsk, Russia. However, during preliminary tests it turned out this equipment was not a match for the mining conditions, so the company has to purchase equipment in the Netherlands. Importing equipment is very expensive. "Because of the long-term, seasonal frost affecting 75% of the rock volume, stripping operations at Kondyor deposit fi rst loosen the soil through drilling and blasting," said Sergei Golovkin, chief geologist, AS Amur. "Stripping opera- tions take place with two to four over- burden benches depending on the amount of top soil. The relatively small size of reservoir sands of 2 to 4 m lets us to conduct single bench mining. Sands are delivered to the warehouses or to the trammel equipment. The annual capa- city for the extraction of sand is 5-6.5 million m 3 ." "Recently transitioning from 40- to 170-mt dump trucks, was the most im- portant technical stage of moderniza- tion," Golovkin said. "Using more pow- erful machinery, the overall fl eet has decreased four times. In addition, we reduced the volume of drilling and blast- ing operations, thus getting a signifi cant reduction in the cost of overburden op- erations. In terms of washing equipment, we recently purchased six new addition- al Knelson concentrators and we believe their use will also increase the extraction of platinum." The company expects to maintain the level of platinum extraction at the Kondyor deposit for the next 10-15 years. As of the end of 2014, on-balance stocks totaled 17 mt. Re-evaluation of those stocks could increase the life of the operation to 20 years. RP has invested $10 million annually in new equipment at Kondyor.