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Kroondal cute it fine
Since its establishment in February this year, Deswik Mining Consultants (Deswik) has already achieved success from its first Deswik mill installation at Aquarius Platinum's Kroondal mine. Laura Cornish spoke to Deswik's sales director, Dave Capstick, about a mill designed to make money.
After a nine-month trial on-site testing period, the first 1000-litre Deswick mill was successfully signed off at Kroondal CTRP plant, where it is being used to recover fine PGM material from the project's chrome tailings dam.
The mill uses a high energy bead milling technology which produces particle sizes of 38 microns - specifically customised - for the Kroondal project, but can be adapted to a range of between 200 and 2 microns. Minopex, Aquarius Platinum's processing partner at Kroondal, has been operating the mill successfully for some time.
Capstick certifies that the mill has been reported by the client to assist in producing record ounces since its introduction in the CTRP circuit.
Although it can be used in a tertiary grind, Capstick expects to see further success and orders being secured for cleaner and tailings re-treatments - most commonly at the moment in the gold and platinum sectors.
Although its capabilities are equal to the more commonly known IsaMill, Capstick explains that there are a number of advantages to the South African patented and designed technology, which make it 'attractive'.
It uses 45% less installed power than other mills, delivers up to a 60% more throughput per m³ mill capacity, is an open circuit, and is faster to build. It also lies vertical as opposed to the traditional horizontal position.
Proposals are already underway for the order of an additional mill at Aquarius. Simmer & Jack's Transvaal Gold Mining Estates (TGME) mine recently reported a significant increase in its gold grade recoveries from its conceptual study, which Capstick attributes to the Deswick mill, in conjunction with MMS's Leachox process.
"We hope to secure four new mill orders at the beginning of 2008, two more in southern Africa and two in Kazakhstan," Capstick notes.
The mill technology only forms one stream of the Deswick business. The company also offers comprehensive mining engineering and geology consulting services on an international basis, and is undergoing feasibility studies to determine the viability of establishing a third business arm for self-extracting tailings and dump material - "using our milling technology, of course".
It is currently running feasibility studies on two dump projects, and anticipates securing a contract by June this year. It will look to process dumps of between 300 000t and 500 000t. "There is a lot of oxidation on material surfaces, making the attraction of our fine grind technology even greater," Capstick concludes.
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