JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Mining operations are back in ramp-up mode at Australia-based Mineral Deposits Limited’s (MDL’s) Grande Côte mineral sands project, in Senegal, after being interrupted in August following impellor failures of the main dredge pump.
The group said in a third-quarter operations review that mining throughputs were again gaining momentum, owing to the security of having multiple spare impellors on site, and tails from the wet concentrator plant (WCP) now largely being discharged using the tails stacker rather than through land-based lines, which had been restricting WCP feed rates.
Various modifications and design changes were being made to the impellor to eliminate the cause of the failures.
From mining 1.9-million tons a month of ore in September, mining rates were expected to be progressively increased to achieve steady-state throughput of 4.5-million tons a month in the third quarter of next year.
MDL, meanwhile, reported that the ramp‐up of the mineral separation plant was progressing “extremely well”.
“Both the wet plant and the ilmenite plant are operating to design feed rates and on-specification standard zircon was produced shortly after start-up of the dry plant primary circuit – an outstanding achievement.
“With the exception of September, which saw production constrained, owing to
the impellor related slowdown of mining in August, the production of ilmenite and zircon has been increasing month-on-month and will continue to increase with the ramp-up of mining,” the company said on Tuesday.