Air-pulse Jigs Bolster Spanish Tungsten Mine Production Plans
W Resources (WRES), operator of the La Parrilla tungsten/tin mine in southwestern Spain, has installed two alljig fines jigs from German supplier allmineral, and anticipates that the upgrade will provide a significant boost toward doubling annual output to 5,000 metric tons (mt) per year in the future. According to allmineral, the mining company also expects to see an increase in product quality as a result of deploying this processing technology.
The largest known tungsten deposits in the western world that can be mined cost-effectively are found some 300 kilometers (km) southwest of Madrid. The La Parrilla mine, located near the Portuguese border, is one of five sites on the Iberian Peninsula mined by WRES. By intensifying and optimizing its ore mining operations in the Extremadura region, the British mining company is looking to surpass the annual output of what is currently the world’s largest tungsten mine — Masan Resources’ Núi Pháo operation in northern Vietnam — by 2020. Around 90% of the world’s production of tungsten goes toward making tungsten steel, the raw material for tool steels.
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Waterless System for Iron Ore Processing
An article recently published by a South Australia news service described a waterless ore processor that reportedly can significantly increase iron ore recovery rates and purities.
According to the article in The Lead, a device called the Cyclomag has been developed by IMP Technologies (IMPTEC) in South Australia and works in conjunction with the company’s Super-Fine Crusher to deliver enhanced iron content with fewer impurities. It utilizes rare earth magnets to pull the magnetic material out of an airflow, while the tailings are separated and collected at the other end of the machine.
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Technology May Eliminate Slurry Tailings Dams
FLSmidth recently announced it will join with Goldcorp to develop EcoTails, a new system the company said is intended to dramatically improve tailings and waste rock disposal while economically processing mine waste and increasing water recovery and reuse by as much as 95%.
Together with Goldcorp, the world’s third largest gold miner, FLSmidth is co-developing a system for co-mingling dewatered tailings with waste rock in a continuous process. Designed specifically for large-scale mining applications, the system is expected to be environmentally safer for managing tailings and waste rock storage and has the potential to eliminate conventional slurry tailings dams completely. Combined with FLSmidth’s co-developed filter press dewatering technology, co-mingling is described as the missing piece of the puzzle to keep costs low for dry stacked tailings.
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