Modern Mining May 2016

MODULAR PLANTS

Cononish gold project of Scotgold Resources in Scotland. “This is a small – 1,5 t/h – but com- plex plant and is designed to be able to grow as the project grows,” says McFarlane. “Cononish will be Scotland’s first gold mine so the project is quite high profile.” While small plants in the 3 to 20 t/h range are at the heart of APT’s offering, the company is capable of providing plants with much big- ger capacities. “Starting roughly four years ago, we started to discern a growing demand for larger plants, probably reflecting the dry- ing up of funding in the junior mining sector,” says McFarlane. “We were being approached by juniors who liked our products – in particular the way they were priced and their modular design philosophy allowing easy expansion – but needed them upscaled to handle higher tonnages and a full range of ore types from oxides through transitional material to sul- phides. So we now offer plants – we call them Combo plants – that go well beyond the 20 t/h capacity that used to be the upper limit of our range and, in fact, we’ve quoted on installations as big as 250 t/h.” As examples of APT’s ability to meet the requirements of bigger projects, McFarlane points to two current contracts. “We’re pres- ently supplying a 120 t/h plant to Piran Resources for a tin project it has in Rwanda and this will be delivered to site shortly,” he notes. “We’ve also just commissioned a 40 t/h CIL plant for CATA Mining Company’s new gold mine in the Mara region of Tanzania.” While it originally made its name in gold processing, APT products can treat most ores. “We don’t do anything in coal and we’re not involved in some of the bulk hard rock com- modities such as iron ore and manganese but

that we can offer customers. We also have rep- resentation in 47 countries worldwide and have supplied plants to – among others – Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, Afghanistan, many countries in South America and most of the mining countries within Africa itself. In all, we have plants operating in over 25 countries.” Interestingly, the company recently sup- plied its first plant in Western Europe – to the

Left: A 10 t/h hard rock and wash plant combination from APT for gold recovery.

Below: An RG100 10 t/h scrubber wash plant.

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May 2016  MODERN MINING  35