The proposal is to develop a project which would reprocess old gold tailing dumps located in the Golden Mile, Kalgoorlie.
Anglo American Pacific Limited plans to treat 32.5 million tonnes which may increase to 57 million tonnes if additional dumps are incorporated. The project would mine the old tailings dumps using high pressure water jets from monitor guns. The slurry of tailings would be pumped from the monitor station to the plant site, and then passed through a carbon-leach/carbon in pulp circuit. The loaded carbon would be transferred to a gold eluation circuit and the gold bullion would be recovered by electrolytic deposition. The retreated tailings would be disposed of in a new tailings storage. The tailings storage approximately 300 ha in area would be located in a sandalwood Reserve vested in the Department of Conservation and Land Management. The project would treat 12,000 tonnes per day for up to fourteen years.
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