Dominican precious metal reprocessing giant implements Minetek Water Evaporation Solution.
This mine is situated 100km northwest of the Dominican Republic capital of Santo Domingo in the Caribbean. Producing gold, silver and copper the mine has a retreatment project which involves reprocessing previously unrecovered gold and silver refractory tailings.
Location – Las Lagunas, Dominican Republic
Type – Copper, Gold and Silver
Industry – Gold and Silver Mine
Product – Water Evaporation System Package
Volume throughput m3 + GPM – 450 m3/hour (2,000 GPM)
Application – Tailings storage facility
Climate – Tropical
Business Challenge
This leading precious metals producer contacted Minetek with a time-sensitive problem involving managing the Tailings Storage Facility (TSF) at their mine site. They urgently needed to manage water levels in a challenging highly humid environment. The surplus tailings water caused a lack of storage capacity on-site, leading to a potential overflow of TSF. The potential environmental repercussions of a failed TSF were a motivation for our client to act quickly.
Results
Well versed in the supply of emergency water management and with a solution proven in all climates, Minetek was able to successfully work with the mine to scope, design, manufacture and install 5 x Epoxy-Coated Steel Evaporators with a total system capacity to process up to 2,000 GPM (450m3/hour) and evaporate up to 900 GPM (202m3/hour) based on a 45% evaporator efficiency rate and 100% run time. The system was designed in alignment with our client's objective to quickly reduce their TSF water levels in order to create more storage capacity on site and optimise their retreatment efforts. Minetek's high-volume Evaporation System enabled the mine to effectively manage their water and therefore reprocess a greater volume of unrecovered gold and silver refractory tailings. The equivalent of a 6-12 month extension to their life of project.