Cristal Mining – Ginkgo

Project highlights

• Mineral Technologies delivered fully integrated solution
• First floating mineral processing plant in Murray Basin
• Converted an 850 tph concentrator to 1750 tph wet concentrator
• Scale up design from pilot-plant test work to full-scale operating plant
• First large-scale use of HC1 and HC1RS high capacity spiral technology
• EPC project completed on budget

Smart process engineering

Located 220km from Broken Hill, the Ginkgo Mine was the first commercial mining operation in the Murray Basin. It contains 5.8Mt of heavy mineral, with an excellent suite of products including Zircon.
Mineral Technologies delivered a fully integrated solution starting with initial testing of the deposit to determine optimum processing methods and flowsheet design through to design of the wet processing plant, plant construction, supply of processing equipment, commissioning and operator training of the site team.

A key feature of the project was the conversion of an 850 tph floating concentrator into a 1750 tph plant. This was facilitated by innovative re-design and utilisation of MD high capacity spirals and Reading magnetic separators. This technology was selected based on extensive metallurgical testing and resulted in a reduction of plant capex by 25%, significantly improving the project’s viability.

Design of the plant was fully modeled to allow online adjustment of operation for varying feed conditions.