Officials at minerals process and project management company MDM Engineering Ltd. have announced that AngloGold Ashanti Ltd. has awarded them completion and commissioning contracts for their MWS uranium plant in Stilfontein, South Africa.
MDM officials said they have a long history with the MWS project, having commenced work on Phase 1B in Q1 2008, which witnessed a 50% project throughput increase from 650,000 metric tons per month (mt/m) to 1.283 million mt/m, treating the reclaimed tailings for the recovery of both gold and uranium.
The Phase 2 module was completed in 2011, and the plant treated an additional 650,000 mt/m of gold reclaimed tailings. Phase 2 also included a reclamation station pumping the material 12 km to a carbon in leach and elution plant, as well as all adjoining infrastructure. In all, MDM laid 72 km of pipeline for Phase 1B and Phase 2.
All work for the current award will be in accordance with original MDM-used standards and specifications during the original implementation of the uranium plant, undertaken by First Uranium before the uranium project was stopped and mothballed.
MDM Engineering Group Ltd. provides services from preliminary and final feasibility studies, through to plant design, construction and commissioning. Company clients have largely been junior and mid-tier mining corporations with Africa-based operations. The company specializes in studies and projects across a variety of minerals, including precious metals, base metals, ferrous and non-ferrous metals, uranium and diamonds.
Headquartered in Johannesburg, South Africa, AngloGold Ashanti Ltd. is gold exploration, mining and marketing companies with 21 operations in 10 countries; major development projects are Tropicana located in Australia, Kibali in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and La Colosa in Colombia.
