Metallurgical Challenges in the Recovery of Copper and Gold from the Chelopech Mine, Bulgaria
The Chelopech Mine, located in Central Bulgaria, is one of Europes largest underground coppergold mines, currently mines and processes approximately one million tonnes of ore per year.Copper concentrates containing gold and silver with significant arsenic content are produced and sold on the world markets.The operation was acquired by Dundee Precious Metals in 2003. A modernization program for the Mine and Plant has since been in progress to increase both production and mechanical reliability,and also to optimize metallurgical recoveries. Since then, mine output and plant throughput have doubled, plant availabilities and utilization have increased significantly, and overall metallurgical performance for copper and gold improved.The paper presents the systematic approach for obtaining and analyzing data, communicating it,and making suggestions for changes to the technological parameters and flowsheet in order to maximize metal recoveries. These studies have correlated the ore characteristics (particle size distributions, metal assays, and Cu and Au mineralogical and phase analyses) with the actual plant performance (kinetics, recoveries, and throughput). Cu recovery by size has been calculated from the mineralogical analyses of feed, concentrate and tails, with the most significant losses being identified in terms of fraction and phase recoveries. This has provided the recommendations (some of them tested in plant) for changes in the grinding and flotation circuits.
Gold and copper recovery improvement Process optimization
I. Baltov N. Hristov K. Evtiminova I. Donchev L. Kuzev
NIPRORUDA JSco, Sofia, Bulgaria Dundee Precious Metals, Chelopech, Bulgaria Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Central Laboratory of Mineralogy and Crystallography, Sofia, Bulgaria University of Mining and Geology, Sofia, Bulgaria
国际会议
XXIV International Mineral Processing Congress(第24届国际矿物加工大会)
北京
英文
1785-1792
2008-09-24（万方平台首次上网日期，不代表论文的发表时间）