MDM Engineering Group has been awarded the feasibility study for a 2.4 million metric ton per year (mt/y) CIL gold plant to treat reclaimed tailings and current flotation rougher tailings for African Barrick Gold’s (ABG) Bulyanhulu gold mine in Tanzania.
ABG is the largest gold producer in Tanzania with a portfolio of four operating mines and is the operator and manager of the Bulyanhulu gold mine. A concentrator plant has been in operation at Bulyanhulu since commissioning in 2001. During 2010, ABG completed a scoping study to determine the technical and economic viability of reclaiming and processing the stored tailings for recovery of gold.
As a result of the in-house studies, ABG now wishes to undertake a FS for a new CIL facility to process tailings reclaimed from the historical tailings at a rate of 1.4 mt/y concurrently with current flotation tailings at a rate of 1 mt/y. The new plant total throughput will be 2.4 mt/y.
“We will be able to bring the experience of the team’s 35 gold plants designed and built across Africa, including 2 x 650,000 mt/m tailings plants built in the last three years,” said George Bennett, executive director, MDM. “We look forward to a long working relationship with African Barrick Gold.”