Modern Mining January 2019

MINING News

and responsible economic growth in Africa. We recently announced plans to build a new 40 MW Syama Solar Hybrid Power Plant which will deliver an expected 40 % savings on power costs and is expected to be the world’s largest mine-based, off-grid fully integrated independent solar hybrid power plant. “The commissioning of Project 85, a series of sulphide processing plant upgrades, will enable us to achieve improved recoveries from high-grade ore sourced from the new sublevel cave,” Welborn continued. “The combination of mine automa- tion, improved recoveries, and lower cost power has the potential to increase Syama site production to 300 000 ounces of gold per annum and reduce Life-of-Mine All-In Sustaining Costs to below US$750 per ounce. “The Syama Underground Mine is an achievement that builds Resolute’s African development expertise demon- strated in earlier successes at Obotan and Golden Pride. The new mine also builds on the company’s underground technical achievements demonstrated in pioneering the sublevel shrinkage mining method at the Mount Wright Underground Mine in Ravenswood, Queensland.” Sublevel caving is an advanced and highly efficient low-cost bulk underground mining method that provides early access to ore. Mining commences at the top of

Primary loader hauling ore from Level 1105. The equipment for the Syama Underground Mine is being supplied by Sandvik (photo: Resolute).

the deposit and develops downwards. Ore is mined from sublevels spaced at regular intervals throughout the deposit. A series of ring patterns are drilled and blasted from each sublevel, and broken ore is extracted out after each blast. Sublevel caving com- prises a series of repetitive activities and is ideally suited to automation. Syama is well suited to the sublevel caving mining method because of its scale, width, orientation, and uniformity of grade. Unlike other bottom-up caving

methods (block cave, panel cave), sub- level cave mining is a top-down method and therefore does not require large initial investments in mining infrastructure prior to commencement. The Syama sublevel cave commenced on the 1105 level with the firing of the first production ring. Production drilling continues in the 1105, 1130 and 1200 lev- els as the underground mine advances towards the targeted full production rate of 2,4 Mt/a. „

Galane Gold places orders for Galaxy upgrade Galane Gold, listed on the TSX-V and the Botswana Stock Exchange, announced in December that it had placed the material orders required for the processing plant upgrade according to its plan to recom- mence production at its Galaxy gold project in Mpumalanga, South Africa by April 2019. Galane has already refurbished the existing 15 000 tonnes per month pro- cessing plant at Galaxy and the upgrade will increase the plant capacity to 30 000 tonnes per month.

dewater the concentrate to approximately 10 %moisture prior to bagging, containeri- sation and dispatch. “With the completion of the funding requirements for our facility with Barak, Galane is now in a position that it can prog- ress to the restarting of the operations at Galaxy,” commented Galane Gold’s CEO, Nick Brodie. “The work done by Galane while Galaxy was in care and maintenance has resulted in a detailed scope of work for the plant upgrade which we have had verified by independent third parties. Galane has also followed the same process for the restart of underground operations. “This represents only the first step of our resurrection of the Galaxy mine and we will shortly commence a study with the aim being to double production and lower the all-in cost as a result of increased econo- mies of scale.” „

sistency of the mineralised feed to the plant will be improved by the installation of an apron feeder under the ROM bin. Initially the existing mill and a single flotation stream will be used to operate up to 15 000 tonnes per month while the new 3,6 m x 6,7 m ball mill and second flotation stream are being erected. Once the new mill is completed both flotation streams will be brought on line to produce concentrate. In addition, a new reagent makeup and dosing plant will be installed to accurately mix and dose flotation chemicals into the circuit. The concentrate will then be thickened, initially in one 4,2 m high rate thickener, while a second unit is installed to cater for a 30 000 tonnes per month throughput. Two 1 250 x 1 250 mm automatic side bar hydraulic filter presses will be installed to

The processing plant upgrade allows for the refurbishment of the Galaxy crush- ing plant and includes the installation of a new jaw and cone crusher which will be able to crush up to 90 t/h. This will pro- vide for ample maintenance time, even at maximum mill throughput, and also accommodate future expansion. The con-

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