Filter Plant Assessment & Optimization

The Nevada Copper – Pumpkin Hollow Project is an underground mining operation with a surface processing facility in Yerington, NV.  The current operation has mineral reserves of 23.9 mt @ 1.74% Cu.  They are fully permitted for advancing an open pit development and are exploring more greenfield targets in the area.  Because of new environmental regulations the tailings on site are dry stacked.  This is becoming more prevalent around the world in an effort to conserve water in areas that are water deficient.

CGK has significant filtration experience and expertise having been part of designing, commissioning, operations, and maintenance of horizontal filter presses.  Nevada Copper requested we come to site and assess the operation of the Tailings Filters.  They were experiencing many issues and were unable to meet the stated design criteria.  We were able to quickly determine that several of the set points were incorrect and that many of the instruments were not correctly reporting back to the DCS.  Through a systematic approach of returning the equipment to the recommended set points while also properly ranging the instruments; CGK was able to achieve the design criteria in less than 2 weeks of being on site.

What we found was that this had a marked improvement in the reliability of the equipment itself.  There was less downtime for blown plates/cloths while still setting records for daily, weekly, and monthly throughput from the filters.

If your company is having problems with filtration, needs to add filtration to their site or is looking for technical support.  Look no further than CGK.  We support the mining industry and the efforts to provide more sustainable green materials to the market.