info mine

Access Asia Pacific

Newmont’s assets in Australasia andIndonesia are diverse, including a varietyof mining approaches and mine settings,reports Paul Moore

The Asia-Pacific region represents one of

Newmont’s largest production areas in

terms of annual gold output, and is on

par with Newmont’s North American assets

centred in Nevada.

The division, referred to as Newmont Asia

Pacific or Newmont APAC, has four major

sites in Australia and one in New Zealand, as

well as one large mine in Indonesia.

The Australian sites include the Tanami

underground gold operations in the Northern

Territory’s Tanami desert which exploit the

Callie orebody, the Jundee underground gold

operation near Wiluna in Western Australia

and the flagship asset, the Boddington surface

gold mine near Perth in Western Australia.

Beyond these fully owned assets is The Super

Pit, which is managed by Kalgoorlie

Consolidated Gold Mines (KCGM) on behalf

of 50-50 joint venture partners Newmont

Australia and Barrick Gold Australia. In New

Zealand, Newmont operates the Favona

underground mine and the Martha open pit

mine in Waihi on the North Island.

In Indonesia on the island of Sumbawa is

the PT Newmont Nusa Tenggara (PTNNT)

majority owned and operated mine at Batu

Hijau. PTNNT, itself a Newmont

Indonesia/Sumitomo joint venture owns 56%,

with PT Pukuafu Indah (20%) and PT Multi

Daerah Bersaing (24%) the remaining

shareholders. Newmont has been operating

the mine since 2000.

The regional office for Newmont’s APAC

Operations is in Subiaco, Western Australia,

located within the greater Perth metropolitan

area. The attached table shows the latest

results for the APAC operations, which were

still subject to finalisation prior to the main

2010 results announcement on February 24.

There are various growth opportunities within

Newmont APAC, ranging from entirely new

projects such as Elang in Indonesia, to

extensive in-mine and near-mine expansions

such as Tanami Shaft Stage 3 and the Golden

Pike project at KCGM.

BoddingtonIn 1980, geologists from Reynolds Australia

Mines (part of the Worsley Alumina Joint

Venture) discovered gold bearing laterite near

the town of Boddington when investigating a

base metal and gold geochemical anomaly

defined by the Geological Survey of Western

Australia in 1978. In 1981, gold mining began

at Boddington Gold Mine and by 1989, it was

the largest gold producer in Australia

producing an average of 400,000 oz/y of gold

and a total of 4 Moz during its life.

Newmont’s current Boddington operation,

Newmont Boddington Gold (NBG) is an

expansion of this original mine that operated

from 1987 to 2001. It is a large, open pit

mining operation about 130 km southeast of

Perth. Newmont purchased the remaining

33.33 % interest in the Boddington project

from its joint venture partner AngloGold

GREAT MINES – Newmont

8 International Mining MARCH 2011

Caterpillar 793 trucks line up to be loaded by a P&H

shovel, Batu Hijau mine, Indonesia

Estimated attributable Estimated attributable Estimated consolidated

prod (‘000 oz) sales (‘000 oz) costs attributable to sales

in $/oz

Boddington – Gold 728 679 $590

Other Australia/NZ 1,075 1,078 $546

Batu Hijau – Gold 364 324 $237

Copper (Mlbs) Copper (Mlbs) Copper ($/lb)

Boddington 58 50 $1.86

Batu Hijau 269 242 $0.69

Newmont APAC 2010 preliminary results

Ashanti in the first quarter of 2009. The

project moved into operation in September

2009, and the first gold was poured in 29

September 2009. Commercial production was

achieved on 20 November 2009.

About 50% of the total gold produced and

all the copper is transported in 200,000 t of

concentrate from Boddington to the port of

Bunbury and exported to markets in Europe

and Asia. The 2011 gold production at

Boddington is expected to be approximately

750,000-800,000 oz at costs applicable to

sales of approximately $580 to $620 per

ounce on a co-product basis. The Boddington

deposit is located within the underexplored

Saddleback Greenstone Belt, a fault bounded

sliver of Achaean volcanic and shallow level

intrusive rocks, surrounded by granitic and

gneissic rocks. Total proven and probable

reserves were 21 Moz at year end in 2009

resulting in an expected mine life of more than

24 years. Extensions of the Boddington pit are

being evaluated.

Production is from two open pits, with the

conventional truck and shovel fleet using

Caterpillar 793D trucks teamed with Bucyrus

495 shovels (see table for full fleet details). The

ultimate dimensions for the main pit under

the current mine plan will be a length of 4 km,

a width of 1 km and a 700 m depth. There are

14 planned stages of pit development and the

overall pit slope will be 25° with the slope

made up of about 650 m of bedrock and 50-

150 m of oxide ore.

The drilling fleet uses 216 mm production

holes and 165 mm presplit holes, with

explosives delivery conducted by Orica via its

Total Down Hole Service with up to four

mobile manufacturing units (MMU). Explosives

delivery capability is 130 t/d with a 70-30

emulsion / ANFO mix.

The peak material movement will be 100-

120 Mt/y during the current early development

years. The annual ore production rate is 35-38

Mt/y. The oxide gold ore is conveyed to the

plant via conveyor following primary crushing.

The rock is very hard andesite and diorite, up

to 250 Mpa, with the processing circuit

employing three crushing stages, including a

tertiary stage use of High Pressure Grinding

Rolls (HPGR) from Polysius, which are followed

by ball milling. The resulting slurry then goes

through an Outotec flotation process where

the material is separated into two streams.

One stream is filtered to provide a concentrate

containing all the copper and 50% of the

gold. The second stream goes through a

carbon-in-leach (CIL) extraction process. Gold

recovered in the CIL circuit represents about

50% of total gold production. The process

utilises flash flotation technology from

Outotec, which is the “instantaneous”

flotation of liberated, high grade particles from

the recirculating load in the grinding circuit. It

includes four flash flotation SkimAir 1800 units

which form part of the complete flotation

circuit.

The conveyor and belt feeder contract for

the NBG project was awarded by Aker

Kvaerner Clough Murray Roberts (AKCMR) to

FLSmidth Conveyor Engineering in August of

2006. The contract involved the design and

manufacture of fifteen conveyors and

seventeen belt feeders with belt widths

ranging from 450 mm to 2,400 mm and

conveyor lengths from 16 m to 2,172 m. The

total motor power added up to over 16,700

kW, the total length of all belting was almost

11.5 km, and the total fabricated steel weight

was approximately 3,700 t.

The overland conveying circuit starts below

two gyratory crushers where the primary

crushed ore is carried up through a tunnel on a

2.2 m wide acceleration conveyor that

discharges onto the overland conveyor. With a



The Boddington mine process flowsheet and

schematic of mill layout

Five Metso MP1000 Crushers

Two 60 x 113 Fuller Crushers

Four 12’ x 24’ Schenck CoarseScreens

Four 2.4 m x 1.65 m KruppHPGR’s Capacity (8,000 t/h)

Eight 12’ x 26’ Schenck BananaScreensFour 15.6 MW Metso BallMills (26’ x 44.5’)

capacity of 8,000 t/h, the overland conveyor’s

1.8 m wide belt runs a distance of 2,172 m

with a rise of 120 m up to the top of a 40 m

high stockpile. Dual 2,800 kW motors drive

the conveyor at almost 4.5 m/s.

The mine has also seen the implementation

of new GPS positioning technology. Leica has

successfully deployed a production version of

its Locata integrated system at the mine. NBG

identified gaps in standard satellite-based GPS

coverage at the current pit depth and chose to

adopt the Leica / Locata solution, which offers

complete positioning coverage for its machinery

fleet throughout the life of the mine.

The Locata integrated machines currently

consist of four drills and one shovel, running

Leica’s high-precision machine-control systems,

DrillNav Plus and

DigNav JS. Five

semi-permanent

LocataLites are

positioned around

the rim of the

NBG southern pit,

and transmit

unobstructed

signals to

machinery

mounted

receivers.This

deployment is

known as a

LocataNet.. Each

LocataLite site is

installed with an antennae mast, solar panels

to charge batteries, and a LocataLite housed

within an environmental protective enclosure.

The antennae mast contains two spatially

separated transmit antennae and a receiver

antenna. The receiver antenna is used to

perform TimeLoc – Locata’s proprietary precise

and continuous time synchronisation

procedure, while the transmit antennae

broadcasts the precise dual-frequency ranging

and carrier signals used by the rovers.

TanamiNewmont’s Tanami operations are located on

Aboriginal freehold land, 540 km north-west

of Alice Springs. Current production comes

from the Callie orebody at Dead Bullock Soak,



Boddington KCGM (50% Newmont) Batu Hijau (PTNNT 56%) Waihi (Martha)

Haul trucks 40 Caterpillar 793D; 34 Caterpillar 793C 111 Caterpillar 793C 16 Caterpillar 777C

3 Caterpillar 785 4 Caterpillar 793F

6 Caterpillar 789 (rental)

Excavators/loaders 3 Bucyrus 495HD rope shovels; 4 Komatsu PC8000 / 6 P&H 4100A and 1 2 Hitachi EX1100 /

1 Bucyrus (Terex O&K) RH120 / 1 PC2000 / 1 PC1250 2800XPA rope shovels; 1 EX1800 / 1 EX1900

and 1 RH340 hydraulic hydraulic excavators; 2 Caterpillar 5230 and hydraulic excavators;

excavators; 1 Caterpillar 994 Le Tourneau L-1850 1 Hitachi EX5500 hydraulic 2 Caterpillar 992C

wheel loader wheel loader excavators; 2 Caterpillar 994 wheel loaders

and 3 988 wheel loaders

Drill rigs 2 Atlas Copco ROC L8; 2 Atlas 8 Atlas Copco D45KS Atlas Copco 2 ROC L8, 5 Montabert drill rigs

Copco PV-271 Pit Viper; 9 Atlas (Ausdrill contracted) 1 Pit Viper PV-351; Atlas

Copco DML; 5 Atlas Copco DML / Copco (Ingersoll Rand)

DM45 (Ausdrill contracted) 1 DMM2 / 1 DML / 3 DMH

Other 1 Caterpillar 16H and 2 24H 1 Caterpillar 16H graders; Caterpillar crawler dozers 2 Caterpillar 14G graders;

graders; 4 Caterpillar 854 wheeled and 2 16M graders: 2 854G 6 D11R / 3 D10R / 4 D10T / 1 D10 and 1 D9 crawler

dozers; 3 Caterpillar D11 and wheeled dozers; 1 D10R and 2 D8R; 4 Caterpillar 24H dozers; 2 Komatsu D85

2 D10 crawler dozers; 1 Caterpillar 4 D10T crawler dozers: and 2 16H graders; dozers

785 water truck; 1 Caterpillar 4 Caterpillar water trucks 3 Caterpillar 834G scrapers

Caterpillar 966H and 930G (2 777 and 2 785) 4 854 wheeled dozers;

wheel loaders; 4 785B water trucks

4 Orica MMU (managed by Orica)

Fleet lists Newmont A-P surface

Outotec TankCells atBoddington mine

May 2002: Newmont acquires 44.44% of

BGM following acquisition of Normandy

Boddington Pty Ltd, as part of the Normandy

Mining takeover

Oct 2002: Project management is assumed

by the BGM Management Company on

behalf of the BGM Joint Venture owners.

Feb 2006: Board approval of the Boddington

Expansion Project is announced by BGM’s

Joint Venture partners

Mar 2006: Newmont Boddington (a

Newmont subsidiary) completes acquisition

of the 22.22% interest in the Boddington

project from Newcrest Operations

Aug 2006: Moorditj Booja Community

Partnership Agreement with Gnaala Karla

Booja People, South West Aboriginal Land &

Sea Council & BGM Management Company

Jun 2009: Saddleback Investments (a Newmont

subsidiary) completes acquisition of the

33.33% interest in the Boddington project

from AngloGold Ashanti Australia, delivering

Newmont an effective 100% ownership

Aug 2009: Newmont Boddington Gold

successfully produces its first gold and

copper concentrate, processing

approximately 100,000 t of ore.

Sept 2009: First gold pour and first transport

of copper/gold from mine to Bunbury Port

Nov 2009: Commercial production declared,

first shipment of concentrate from Bunbury

Port to overseas markets.

New BGM timeline


(DBS) and is processed at the Granites mill,

more than 40 km to the east of the

underground mine.

Gold mineralisation at Callie occurs in thin

(1-30 mm) steeply dipping quartz-chlorite

sheeted vein system that cuts across a 40°

plunging folded sequence of medium to fine-

grained metasediments. While the vein system

is highly continuous, the gold distribution is

highly variable and is controlled by the

interaction of lithology, alteration, structure

and vein density. The mineralisation is

commonly coarse-grained and has a relatively

high nugget effect, consequently the orebody

is problematic to estimate and shows a high

degree of sensitivity to drill hole density.

Uncertainty in the estimation of the orebody

was a significant factor that led to sublevel

open stoping with cemented aggregate fill

being adopted as the mining method to

improve extraction selectivity.

Callie is now 1.4 km deep, which is

impacting productivity and increasing costs per

ounce. Mined ounces were replaced through

generative exploration in 2009 increasing

reserves to 1.64 Moz and initially extending

the anticipated life of mine by a year to the

end of 2015. The company continues to

explore opportunities to extend the mine life.

Reserves are now up to 2 Moz with production

of 250,000 ounces in 2010.In November 2010,

Newmont Asia Pacific announced that it had

begun transitioning Callie underground

operations from the long term contractor, HWE

Mining, to Newmont Tanami after approving

mine life extension projects.

"HWE Mining has been the sole mining

The coarse ore stockpile at Newmont Boddington Gold

Mine (BGM)

Jundee Tanami (Callie) Mt Charlotte Waihi (Favona; mining

(KCGM; 50% Newmont) completion expected 2011;

HWE contracted)

Underground trucks 5 Caterpillar AD55B 10 Caterpillar AD55B Atlas Copco (Wagner) 6 Komatsu HM300-1

7 AD55 MT5000/MT5010

LHDs 6 Caterpillar R2900G 5 Caterpillar R2900G Caterpillar (Elphinstone) 2 Sandvik (Toro) 1400;

(including four equipped R2900 and R1700 1 Sandvik (Toro) 0010

with Minegem) 1 Sandvik LH514

Drill jumbos/prod rigs/ 4 Sandvik (Tamrock) Axera D07; 3 Sandvik (Tamrock) Solo Atlas Copco M7C and 2 Sandvik (Tamrock) Axera

bolters 1 Sandvik (Tamrock) Cabolt; 7; 3 Sandvik (Tamrock) H1357 Simba long hole D07; 2 Solo 5-5V production

2 Sandvik (Tamrock) Solo Avera D07; 1 Sandvik drills and M2D / 352 rigs; 1 Minimatic H205

Minimatic H205 twin boom jumbos

Other 1 Caterpillar grader; 2 Normet 2 Caterpillar 12H and 1 Caterpillar 120G grader 1 Normet Spraymec

6705B charging vehicles 16H graders; 2 Robbins 650W shotcreting vehicle /

raise drills (41R and 73R); 1 Charmec 1610B charging

Getman 2-500C and vehicle; 1 Caterpillar 12H

Charmec 1610B charging grader; 3 Volvo L120E

rigs; 4 Boart Longyear tool carriers;

diamond drills (2 LM75 /

2 LM90) 5 Volvo L120

wheel loaders; 1 Caterpillar

980G and 1 972G wheel

loaders; 1 Caterpillar 69D

truck

Fleet lists Newmont A-P underground

An HWE-owned Komatsu ADT emerging from Favona

adit, New Zealand


contractor at the Callie underground mine

since 1995 and has helped make Tanami,

which has mined more than 6.5 Moz , one of

the most productive mines in Australia," said a

statement. "However, recent Newmont

decisions to further invest strongly in Tanami –

in new projects, facilities and mining

infrastructure – means increased requirements

for owner control of day-to-day operations.

We would like to thank HWE Mining for a

successful, collaborative partnership." The

transition is expected to take approximately six

months up to May 2011, and all contractors

operating at Callie will be offered employment

at the mine.

WaihiNewmont Waihi Gold (NWG) operates the

Martha open pit and Favona underground

mines in the coastal town of Waihi, about 150

km south of Auckland in New Zealand’s North

Island. The original Martha mine closed in

1952, and was recognised as one of the most

important gold and silver mines in the world,

having produced 5.6 Moz of gold and 38.4

Moz of silver.

Mining in the Martha pit resumed in 1987

as an open pit operation and the Favona

underground mine began in 2004, producing

ore from stopes since 2006. Martha and

Favona produce an average of 100,000 oz of

gold and 750,000 oz of silver annually. Total

production in 2009 was 114,000 oz of gold

and 448,886 oz of silver. HWE Mining has

been responsible for the development,

management and operation of the Favona

underground gold mine in New Zealand since

2004. Gold was first extracted from the mine

in 2006 using modified Avoca retreat long-hole

benching. The contractor provides the full

range of underground mining services at the

Favona mine. This includes mechanised

underground development and stoping using

drill and blast techniques, as well as

maintenance and transportation services.

Equipment includes Sandvik 1400 and 0010

LHDs as well as Komatsu HM300 ADTs.

JundeeThe Jundee operations are 790 km northeast

of Perth in the northern Yandal greenstone

belt. The mine commenced production in

1995, and the operation controls some 48 ha



A Sandvik jumbo operating at the Callie mine, part of

Newmont’s Tanami operations. Newmont is in the

process of taking over mining responsibilities from

contractor HWE

http://www.ishigaki.co.jp

of mining and exploration leases over a 45 km strike. Its nearest

settlement is the predominately Indigenous community of Wiluna, about

50 km north east of the mine.

The gold is hosted with in 4 km long and 2.5 km wide sequence of

Archaean basalts and weakly differentiated dolerite sills separated by

sedimentary rocks and dacitic porphyries. Younger felsic and intermediate

porphyries and dolerite dykes intrude the sequence. The mine sequence

is bounded to the west by a thick sequence of felsic volcanics and

volcaniclastics and mineralisation diminishes eastwards as the mafic

package becomes more mag-rich to ultramafic in composition.

The gold is hosted within narrow, discontinuous quartz veins (typically

<0.5m wide) which contain abundant visible gold.

Initially ore was sourced solely from a number of open pits and then in

1998 underground operations began with the Barton decline. Open pit

operations around the immediate Jundee area continued until 2002

when the last of the near surface ore was exhausted. Open pit ops were

recommenced some 30km to the south of the mill in 2003 in some small

pits (Gourdis-Vause) which operated until 2007.

All ore now comes from the underground operations which yield

about 1 Mt of high grade material per year. Jundee currently has some

60 underground development headings that are either active or awaiting

activation, 20 or more production headings, and on average, eight

stopes on-line at any

time. There are two underground portals which provide access to the

various lode structures – the Barton and Invicta portals. The Barton portal

services five orebodies (Barton, Hughes, Hampton, Nim and Westside)

whilst Invicta commenced in 2003 and services two – Invicta and

Cardassian.

Ore is hauled to surface by 55 t capacity underground trucks through

5.8 m by 5.5 m drifts. The ore is mined using top-down long hole (up-

hole) open stope bench retreat mining. The benches are nominally 20 m

apart – the lode structures have a dip of 40-50° and have multiple

orientations. The mining method typically extracts the ore in 30-50 m

panels separated by 5-10 m rib pillars which are left behind to provide

geo-mechanical support. The overall mining ore extraction recovery is

about 83%.

The thin veins, the relatively flat lying structures, the multiple lode

orientations and the complex structure of the geology make the Jundee

orebody challenging. The mine is currently stoping at a depth of some

470 m and developing at around 600 m.

The five lode domains in Barton are geographically expansive, making

ventilation complex with cascading ventilation in lower parts of the mine

placing some constraints on production capacity. The Barton mine has

four 4 m diameter Return Air Raises (RAR) equipped with 4 axial fans –

the Invicta mine currently has one RAR and fan. The geographical spread

of the mine also impacts mine scheduling as equipment has long trams

between lode domains.

The mining process is model and production intensive due to the

complex geology and the need to mine the thin veins in small slices in

order to control ore dilution. As an example, in 2008, the mine

completed some 14 km of lateral development, 3 km of vertical

development, 120 km of diamond core drilling, 150 km of production

drilling and 1.6 Mt of material movement.

The underground mining fleet (see table) comprises four jumbos, two

production drills and one cable bolting drill. There are six 55 t trucks, six

LHDs, three charge up units and four integrated tool carriers. The mine is

using Orica ikon electronic detonators for bigger, controlled stope blasts,

while keeping dilution in check, where applicable. A new PitRAM mine

control system has also been introduced since late 2010. Additionally, the

mine has been one of the main locations for testing of automated LHDs,

MARCH 2011 International Mining 17

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CORPORATE OFFICE 145 Magill Street, Lively, Ontario, Canada P3Y 1K6 Tel: 705.692.3661 Fax: 705.692.4850

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http://www.mti.ca

and four of the mine’s R2900G Caterpillar

LHDs are equipped with the Minegem system.

The underground mining and fleet

maintenance activity is carried out by Byrnecut

Mining (BCM) under an alliance contract

arrangement. Mine day to day management is

shared by BCM and Newmont personnel who

form an integrated management structure to

ensure that functional duplication is

eliminated. All mine design, blast design,

production geology, survey, geotechnical and

long term mine planning is undertaken by

Newmont staff. The BCM alliance also supplies

surface operating equipment, which facilitates

secondary haulage, road maintenance, mill

crusher feed and waste rock management

operations.

The Jundee process circuit is a standard CIL

plant with a hard rock processing capacity of

some 1.35 Mt/y. On the current blend ratio of

1 Mt of hard underground ore, the mill

throughput is some 1.7 Mt/y. The make-up

feed is sourced from some 3 Mt of

accumulated low grade oxide material.

The grinding circuit is preceded by a single

toggle overhead eccentric swing jaw crusher

(150 kW) with a 350 t/h operating capacity.

The circuit comprises a 5.5 m diameter (28 ft)

by 8.7 m long low aspect SAG mill with steel

lining and a 3,850 kW motor which operates

in open circuit. The ball mill is a 4.26 m by

6.68 m low aspect rubber lined mill fitted with

a 2,200 kW motor – the ball mill operates in

closed circuit. The grinding circuit is supported

by a Metso HP100 cone crusher driven by a 90

kW motor and operating with a closed side set

of 15 mm which crushes pebble sized scat

material cut by the SAG mill trommel screen.

Pre-leach classification is achieved using a

hydrocyclone classifier (cyclone) circuit of 20

cyclones with 8 operating at any one time. The

gravity circuit comprises two 30 in Knelson

classifiers that batch treat a portion of the

cyclone underflow capturing the coarse gold

fraction. Concentrate from the Knelson units is

then fed to an in-line leach reactor that uses a

high cyanide/caustic solution to complex the

gold and support dissolution into pregnant

eluate.

The wet circuit comprises a CIL circuit with

two leach tanks and six adsorption tanks –


BoddingtonEquipment Manufacturer Specifications

Primary gyratory (2) FLSmidth (FFE Minerals) 60 in x 113 in, capacity 3,670 t/h; each 1,000 kW

Ball mills (4) Metso 26 ft x 44 ft (each 14.5 MW)

Cone crushers (6) Metso MP1000, capacity 1,415 t/h (each 750 kW)

High Pressure Grinding Rolls (4) (HPGR) Polysius (ThyssenKrupp) Capacity 2,105 t/h (each 1,400 kW)

Flotation tanks (47) Outotec Outotec 6 TankCell-150; 18 TankCell-200; 9 TankCell-100; 3 TankCell-30;

7 OK-8; 4 SK1800 SkimAir flash flotation cells

Leach tanks (24) SPX Lightnin 6 17 m x 17 m leach tanks; 14 14.9 m x 14.9 m adsorption tanks

Thickener tank Outotec 74 m diameter

Batu HijauEquipment Manufacturer Specifications

Primary gyratory (2) Metso (Svedala) 60 in x 89 in, 750 kW

SAG mills (2) Metso (Svedala) 36 ft x 19 ft (each 13.5 MW gearless drive from ABB)

Ball mills (4) Metso (Svedala) 20 ft x 33.5 ft (geared Westinghouse 7,500 kW motors)

Cone crushers (4) Metso MP1000

Pebble screen Schenck Process 7.3 m x 3.6 m flat deck

Vertimill and polishing mill Metso (Svedala) 950 kW and 375 kW

Rougher/scavenger flotation cells (50) FLSmidth (Eimco) 127 m3 dimensions, powered by Toshiba 150 kW motor

Hydrocyclones (15) Weir Minerals (Cavex) 26 in diameter

Column flotation cells (4) Consep CPT 4.3 m x 14 m

Cleaner and scavenger flotation cells (23) FLSmidth (Wemco) 4 42.5 m3 first cleaner cells; 4 42.5 m3 scavenger cells; 10 14. 2 m3

second cleaner cells; 5 14.2 m3 third cleaner cells

Thickener (3) Supaflo Each 30m diameter

Filter press (2) Metso (Svedala) VPA15-5, 54 plates

JundeeEquipment Manufacturer Specifications

Primary jaw crusher Metso (Nordberg) C125

SAG mill ANI 18 ft x 28.5 ft, 3.85 MW

Ball mill Metso (Nordberg) 22 ft x 14 ft, 2.2 MW

Pebble crusher Metso HP100

Hydrocyclones (20) Weir Minerals (Cavex) CVX250

Gravity concentrators (2) Knelson KC-CD30

In-line leach reactor Gekko ILR1000BA

Leach and adsorption tanks (8) - 2 1,700 m3 mechanically agitated leach tanks; 6 1,700 m3 mechanically

agitated adsorption tanks

Desorption / carbon regen / 1 6 t batch split AARl elution circuit; 2 electrowinning cells; 1 WCC250D-

gold smelting circuit - 2 vertical gas-fired carbon regen kiln; 1 electric calcine oven; 1 A300

furnace

Newmont A-P selected process equipment


slurry residency time is some 56 hours and

each tank has a capacity of 1,700 m3. The

adsorption tanks carry about 76 t of carbon.

The gold recovery circuit has been designed

to operate as a single elution per day on a

seven day a week basis. The circuit is based on

the Split Anglo American Research Labs (AARL)

system in which the carbon, loaded with gold,

is first acid washed and then eluted using hot

caustic cyanide solution at 110°C. The design

uses two columns, one for acid washing and

the other for caustic-cyanide desorption, each

column has a 6 t carbon capacity. The gold

bearing eluate produced from the desorption

process is circulated through electrowinning

cells (20 h cycle at Jundee) where the gold is

electroplated onto steel wool. The barren

solution at the end of the cycle is then

returned to the first leach tank or used for

cyanide mixing. The gold laden steel wool is

removed from the electrowinning cells,

oxidised in a calcining oven and smelted

directly with fluxes in a gas fired furnace. The

gold slag melt is poured into bullion moulds.

Exploration is primarily focussed on

extensions of the underground mineralised

structures at depth, particularly in the Westside

hanging wall lodes – Westside lodes currently

hold 90 % of total Jundee reserve ounces. An

exploration strategy designed to discover a

new mineralised system is also in place and has

both open pit and underground targets.

While current Jundee operations produce

approximately 300,000 oz/y, the potential

opportunity to add reserves with expansions to

the Jundee veins, the Cardassian vein as well

as the new Gateway project, a smaller

underground mine, are being investigated.

KCGM – The Super PitDiffering from the other Australian operations

in being a 50-50 joint venture between

Newmont and Barrick, the Kalgoorlie

Consolidated Gold Mine’s (KCGM) Super Pit is

a famous landmark in Kalgoorlie-Boulder, 600

km east of Perth. Known as the Golden Mile,

the Super Pit was originally a jigsaw of leases

held in separate hands since 1893 when gold

was discovered in Kalgoorlie. An

amalgamation of the leases was completed in

1989 and the Golden Mile became the

Fimiston open pit. Today, it stretches 3.8 km

along the length of the town and is 1.35 km

wide with a depth of 500m.

The gold occurs in greenstone belt-hosted

structural zone deposits. The goldfield consists

of a number of discrete deposits, of which the

most significant are the Golden Mile, Mt

Charlotte (3 km north of the Super Pit), Mt

Percy and Hannan's North. The Golden Mile

deposit accounts for about 90% of gold

production from the field.

The gold deposits are largely hosted by

ultramafic and mafic volcanic rocks and mafic

sills, with the Golden Mile dolerite, a mafic sill,

the most important host to mineralisation. The

stratigraphy has been intensely deformed by

folding and faulting. Gold occurs as native

gold and as gold and gold-silver tellurides.

Native gold often occurs within or marginal to

pyrite grains. The ores are mineralogically

complex and refractory.

The operation produced 674,000 oz of gold

in 2009. The ore lodes varying in size from

centimetres up to several hundred metres in

length and dip. All of the lodes that can be

economically mined from the Super Pit must

be greater than 10 m in length and 6 m in

width.

The main assets in addition to The Super Pit

are the Mt Charlotte underground mine,

Fimiston mill and Gidji roaster. 2009 Proven

and probable reserves for KCGM stand at 8.4

Moz on a consolidated basis. Approval was

granted in 2009 for a new project, the Golden

Pike layback, which will deepen the Super Pit

to 600 m, establish additional waste dumps

with a capacity of 140 Mt of waste rock and

expand the tailings storage facilities. Waste

stripping for the potential mine-life extending

project began in January 2010.

The open pit blastholes are about 6 m apart

along each row, measure 165 mm in diameter

and are about 11.5 m in depth. The mine uses

truck and shovel operations but rather than

rope shovels utilises four Komatsu PC8000

hydraulic excavators, which are teamed with a

fleet of 34 Caterpillar 793C, four 793F and six

789 trucks. Currently the mining fleet at the

Super Pit is moving around 240,000 t/d.

A LeTourneau L-1850 wheel loader was

recently commissioned into the frontline

loading fleet at KCGM to supplement the

mine’s fleet of hydraulic excavators. The loader

is equipped with the LINCSTM microprocessor-

based control and monitoring system, along

with the complimentary LINCS load-weigh

system which display and logs real-time load

per pass, load per truck and total loads. To

meet production targets at the Super Pit, the

new loader is fitted with a 25 m3 rock bucket.

Komatsu Australia’s team at the Super Pit

recently won a continuous improvement award

for the development of a much safer and

faster pin-lock system for bucket change-out

on the four PC8000 excavators. The previous

pin-lock system required service technicians to

manually position the bucket pins – which

weigh up to 500 kg – while they were inserted

and removed. The new system eliminates any

need for manual handling. It consists of a

unique one-piece locking device that retains

itself, and automatically aligns the pin into the

bucket, reducing the risk of any injuries to

personnel during installation of the bucket. In

addition, the time taken to fit the bucket pins

has been greatly reduced. The PC8000 buckets

are changed over once a year, with the

removed bucket being refurbished in the

interim.

Ore is treated at the Fimiston mill, with the

resulting sulphide concentrates then roasted

and leached at the Gidji roaster, located

approximately 20 km north of the main

Kalgoorlie operations. Gold-laden carbon from

the Gidji roaster is sent to the Fimiston mill for

processing. Processing is supplemented by two

ultra-fine grinding mills that treat concentrate

which cannot be processed by the roaster.

The mill has two grinding circuits: a 36 ft

SAG mill and two ball mills ; and a 24 ft SAG



Komatsu PC8000 hydraulic excavator loading

Caterpillar 793 truck, KCGM Super Pit

mill and one ball-mill. Each of Fimiston's two

ball milling circuits has two Knelson

concentrators, a 5.5 m x 3.1 m vibrating

screen, as well as a Warman gravity feed

pump, and Warman concentrate transfer

pump.

The Mt Charlotte mine is an underground

operation utilising the open stoping method,

and employs Atlas Copco 5010 trucks with

Caterpillar R2900 and R1700 LHDs. The Mt

Charlotte gravity circuit has a 300 t/h KCXD48

Knelson concentrator, a Schenck Process 4.3 m

x 2.5 m vibrating screen, as well as Warman

gravity feed and concentrate transfer pumps.

Metso has been involved with KCGM since

2001 as preferred contractor for servicing and

maintenance of the crushing and materials

handling facility at Fimiston. A key

achievement by Metso was to optimise the

wear packages and profiles used in the primary

crusher. This optimization has increased

concave life by as much as 300 %, between

changes, with the useful life of mantles

increasing in a similar range. Metso also

upgraded the primary crusher from a superior

Mk1 to a Mk2 model. Following the upgrade

KCGM has consistently seen a 95 % plus

availability on the crusher and conveyor system

with very little unplanned maintenance.

Batu HijauBatu Hijau, operated by PT Newmont Nusa

Tenggara, is an open pit copper and gold mine

with associated processing and support

facilities on the Indonesian island of Sumbawa.

The main product is copper concentrate

containing small quantities of gold which is

transported to local and foreign smelters for

further processing. Production of gold and

copper at Batu Hijau increased 43.15 % to

554,000 oz and 25 %to 420 Mlbs,

respectively, in the first nine months of 2010

compared to the same period a year earlier. At

the end of 2009, the mine’s estimated reserves

were 11.47 billion pounds of copper and

11.57 Moz of gold, both on a consolidated

basis.

The main copper minerals are chalcopyrite

and bornite. Pyrite is the main floatable

gangue mineral. Ore grade and mineralogy

tend to vary significantly with location in the

orebody. Variations also exist in physical

properties such as hardness and fracture. This

variability has a strong influence on mill

throughput and grinding product particle size.

The Batu Hijau porphyry copper deposit was

discovered in 1990 after ten years of

exploration. Following the approval of the

feasibility study and environmental impact

analysis, a $1.8 billion construction project

commenced in early 1997 and was finished in

late 1999, followed by commissioning.

Commercial production started in March 2000.

Fluor performed engineering, procurement,

and construction (EPC) on the project and used

a multi-office execution approach and

segregating the mega-project into five

manageable segments: port, power plant,

concentrator, mine, and township. A major

design challenge was the availability of fresh

water on the island to handle the demands of

the processing plant. Fluor engineers designed

and tested a seawater system to ensure that all

equipment used at the mine was compatible

with the seawater conditions.

WorleyParsons provided maritime planning

and design assistance for the marine structures

required for the operation. The marine facilities

consist of a concentrate export berth for

loading bulk carriers up to 40,000 DWT, a

general cargo berth capable of handling

vessels up to 20,000 DWT, and a coal

unloading berth to supply a thermal power

plant. The concentrate export berth allows

bulk carriers to be warped under a

slewing/shuttling shiploader with a design

capacity of 2,000 t/h.

The mine is now in its fifth phase of

operation. Phase 6 has already been given the

go ahead, and stripping commenced in May

2010 to extend the life of mine.

The mining fleet at Batu Hijau as a higher

volume copper-gold mine is large, with 111

Caterpillar 793C haul trucks, and a main

loading fleet of P&H 4100A and 2800XPA

shovels as well as several hydraulic excavators

for more selective mining.

The mill was initially designed to process

120,000 t/d of ore with a head grade of 0.69

% copper and 0.45 g/t gold. Since

commissioning in 1999, a number of

modifications have been made to the grinding

circuit. These initiatives have resulted in

increased mill throughput up to 140,000 t/d.

Processing consists of two Svedala (Metso)

SAG mills with gearless drives to reduce ore

from 175 mm to 6 mm. This is followed by a

flotation circuit consisting of five parallel banks

of roughers/scavengers. Each bank has ten

Wemco 130 m3 flotation cells with the first

two cells acting as roughers and the remaining

eight cells as scavengers.

The entire rougher concentrate stream is

reground in a tower mill before being fed to

the cleaner circuit. A separate regrinding circuit

consisting of two tower mills and a

hydrocyclone cluster is set up for grinding the

scavenger concentrate. Scavenger concentrate

reports to the hydrocyclones so that only the

coarse fraction from the hydrocyclone

underflow is reground. The closed circuit

arrangement is designed to produce a final

grinding product of about 45 microns.

Two column flotation cells were also

installed in 2006 as single-stage rougher

cleaners at Batu Hijau, and two additional

columns have since been added. The objective

was to provide additional residence time in the

cleaner circuit to maintain maximum recovery

during high mill throughput and high feed

grade periods. Installation of the columns

allowed the relatively coarse, well-liberated

rougher concentrate and the relatively fine,

low-grade scavenger concentrate to be treated

separately, improving metallurgical

performance in the cleaner circuit.

Managing storm-water runoff and limiting

The main Batu Hijau open pit copper-gold mine on

Sumbawa island


MARCH 2011 International Mining 21

its discharge at the Batu Hijau mine is critical

to the success of the mine. The area

experiences frequent high intensity rainfall

events, resulting in significant erosion and

sedimentation challenges associated with the

overburden stockpiles. A storm-water

management plan developed for the mine

included construction of numerous diversion

channels constructed through steep terrain,

massive sediment control features that provide

9 million cubic meters of storage, and a 3,600

l/s high-head pumping system. The result is a

limited discharge facility for the entire mine

area.

Elang is a copper and gold deposit some 60

km east of Batu Hijau and PTNNT has

exploration permits in place. Drill permits are

approved for the deposit and a drill program is

anticipated to start in 2011 to improve

confidence in and possibly expand the

consolidated 25 Moz gold and 16 billion

pound copper target (target based on a third

party JORC-compliant resource estimate

effective June 2010). Currently PTNNT has five

blocks of gold and copper deposits in

Sumbawa island; Batu Hijau, North Lunyuk,

Elang block, Rinti block and Peluk Panas

block. IM


Processing sites at Batu Hijau

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