The fifth-largest gold-miner in the world, Harmony Gold, is investigating the feasibility of remining some of its old tailings dams at its operations in the Welkom area.
The objectives of the project are to remine old tailings dams, reprocess the tailings to extract gold, and to consolidate the
residue tailings from the processing plant onto three tailings facilities.
Nine historic tailings dams in the Welkom area are being considered as part of this project. The proposed operations in Welkom will process about 240 Mt of tailings from these existing tailings dams.
The project will broadly consist of remining the nine excisting tailing facilities in Welkom.iron slag crusher machines Pipelines will be laid down to supply water to the remining areas and to transport the slurry to the processing plant. Gold will be removed from the slurry.
Harmony’s CEO Graham Briggs says, “The remining of tailings presents an ideal opportunity to consolidate tailings facilities spread across the region into three tailings facilities. This will allow forcrusher spare parts manufacturer better management of the facilities and the implementation of stricter control on environmental management, which earlier facilities may not have taken into account during design.”
The reprocessing of tailings is focused on gold extraction. The potential extraction of uranium is still being assessed by the company.
Gold may be reclaimed from the slurry at tcoal crusher processing plant projecthe existing St Helena processing plant, situated south-west of Welkom. The plant was mothballed almost three years ago and could be brought into production again. It may be expanded to allow for the treatment of the required volumes of slurry.
Several regulatory processes are being conducted, including an environmental-impact assessment.
Should the Harmonyjaw crushing machine working principle remining project be approved by the authorities, it is expected that construction at these operations will start towards the end of 2008.
It is expected that about 130 temporary job opportunities will be created during the construction phase. Further, about 150 permanent jobs are expected to be created by the project over a 20-year period. This is subject to the outcome of the engineering studies.
There are three significant benefits that will flow from the proposed project; this includes tackling environmental concerns related to the existing nine tailings dams, consolidating tailings using current best practice, reducing current environmental impacts, and the economic benefit of gold recovery.
The company is currently develop- ing a number of projects, including the Elandsrand and Doornkop mines, the Phakisa project and the Tshepong decline development.
Also outside South Africa, the company owns the Mt Magnet mine, in Western Australia, and has recently disposed of the South Kal operation, selling the asset to Australian junior miner Diore Exploration at the end of the 2007 financial year.
Harmony is also developing the Hidden Valley mine, in Papua New Guinea. The budget for exploration expenditure in Papua New Guinea is A$15,6-million, including an alowance for exploration in areas outside its current leases.
Harmony Gold is listed on the JSE, the NYSE, the Nasdaq, the LSE, as well as the Euronext in Brussels and Paris, and on the Berlin Stock Exchange.