Access Asia Pacific

Newmonts assets in Australasia and

Indonesia are diverse, including a variety
of mining approaches and mine settings,
reports Paul Moore
T
he Asia-Pacific region represents one of
Newmonts largest production areas in
terms of annual gold output, and is on
par with Newmonts 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
Territorys 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 Newmonts 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.
Boddington
In 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.
Newmonts 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
GREAT MINES Newmont
10 International Mining MARCH 2011
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 Coarse
Screens
Four 2.4 m x 1.65 m Krupp
HPGRs Capacity (8,000 t/h)
Eight 12 x 26 Schenck Banana
Screens
Four 15.6 MW Metso Ball
Mills (26 x 44.5)
capacity of 8,000 t/h, the overland conveyors
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
Leicas 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 Locatas proprietary precise
and continuous time synchronisation
procedure, while the transmit antennae
broadcasts the precise dual-frequency ranging
and carrier signals used by the rovers.
Tanami
Newmonts 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,
12 International Mining MARCH 2011
GREAT MINES Newmont
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 at
Boddington 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 BGMs
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
14 International Mining MARCH 2011
(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
GREAT MINES Newmont
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.
Waihi
Newmont 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 Zealands 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.
Jundee
The 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
16 International Mining MARCH 2011
GREAT MINES Newmont
A Sandvik jumbo operating at the Callie mine, part of
Newmonts Tanami operations. Newmont is in the
process of taking over mining responsibilities from
contractor HWE
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
GREAT MINES Newmont
I Largest & most complete
line of mining equipment
in the industry
I Capital equipment:
- LHDs - Drills
- Trucks - Utility Vehicles
- Rail Haulage - Cylinders
I Consumable products for
most applications:
- Raise Bore
- ITH - Blast Hole
- Bucket and Variable Lead Lip Systems
I Superior service, training
& support
A New World
of Mining Expertise
CORPORATE
OFFICE
145 Magill Street,
Lively, Ontario,
Canada P3Y 1K6
Tel: 705.692.3661
Fax: 705.692.4850
MTI SALES
25 Fielding Road,
Copper Cliff, Ontario,
Canada P0M 1N0
Tel: 705.692.3661
Toll Free: 800.772.3661
Fax: 705.682.4508
NORTH BAY
P.O. Box 1437,
21 Exeter Street,
North Bay, Ontario,
Canada P2B 8K6
Tel: 705.472.5207
Fax: 705.472.5861
and four of the mines 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
18 International Mining MARCH 2011
Boddington
Equipment 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 Hijau
Equipment 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 m
3
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 m
3
first cleaner cells; 4 42.5 m
3
scavenger cells; 10 14. 2 m
3
second cleaner cells; 5 14.2 m
3
third cleaner cells
Thickener (3) Supaflo Each 30m diameter
Filter press (2) Metso (Svedala) VPA15-5, 54 plates
Jundee
Equipment 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 m
3
mechanically agitated leach tanks; 6 1,700 m
3
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
GREAT MINES Newmont
slurry residency time is some 56 hours and
each tank has a capacity of 1,700 m
3
. 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 110C. 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 Pit
Differing from the other Australian operations
in being a 50-50 joint venture between
Newmont and Barrick, the Kalgoorlie
Consolidated Gold Mines (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
mines 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 m
3
rock bucket.
Komatsu Australias 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
GREAT MINES Newmont
20 International Mining MARCH 2011
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 Hijau
Batu 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 mines 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 m
3
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
GREAT MINES Newmont
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
22 International Mining MARCH 2011
Processing sites at Batu Hijau
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