AUSTRALIA - GEKKO SYSTEMS has won the Highly Commended Award in the Minerals Processing Plant of the Year category at the third annual Australian Mining Prospect Awards held in Brisbane. The award was sponsored by ABB AUSTRALIA and aims to recognize innovation and excellence.
In particular, the award noted Gekko's work for Ballarat Goldfields. Gekko conducted the test program, designed, built and commissioned the plant designed specifically for the Ballarat orebody. The plant incorporates conventional equipment for the first half of the flowsheet and Gekko core equipment for the back end. The mill has two-stage crushing to <25 mm, and the final size reduction is carried out in a vertical shaft impactor to a P80 grind of 650 microns. The Gekko gravity recovery system runs in closed circuit with the impactor. The plant also has fully automated startup and shutdown capabilities.
"Compared to a conventional plant the capital costs are about one-third for the same throughput because of both the ore type and the approach Gekko has taken to the engineering and to treating the ore," said Sandy Gray, Gekko's technical director. "For capital costs of around A$20 million the plant can recover up to 90% of the gold at 600,000 t/y and is easily expandable well beyond that. The plant is performing above that of our test work predictions. The final tailings residues to date have been better than expected and well below design," he added.
Contact Gekko's Vancouver office at 604-681-2288 or gekkos@gekkos.ca.
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