Thanks for the detailed explanation.Sounds like a right PITA -...

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eastwest101

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13/04/22

16:38

Post #: 60836664
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Originally posted by PupTentacle: ↑

From memory, E1 North had a heap of fluorine and some uranium (but never enough to be an issue). Monakoff had heaps of oxidized Zn that suppressed copper flotation to the point where the first loads or ore through the plant resulted in shitty Zn cons with minor Cu. E1 South didn't have as much fluorine as E1 North, but did have elevated Zn and Pb like Monakoff. Not enough to be economically recoverable, but enough to require a processing strategy.
The main reason for mothballing E1S and East was the economics of the copper resource though, not just the met. Monakoff's problems were metallurgical and compounded by the fact that the deposit is small so the fixed costs in to developing a a process to treat the ore really ate into the margins.

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Thanks for the detailed explanation.

Sounds like a right PITA - just enough Zn to stuff up the copper recovery but not enough Zinc to be economic in its own right, I imagine that Glencore didn't want to fiddle with or reconfigure the Ernest Henry concentrator to deal with these nuisance elements given the short mine life from the E1 pits and the fact they were going back to underground Ernest Henry ore as a better long term plan.

Why didn't they just try blending in the Mt Margaret E1 Monakoff stuff and overwhelming them with standard Ernest Henry quartz magnetite chalcopyrite ore, or was there a shortage of "normal" Ernest Henry ore at the time?

I know at Cannington they blended different ore sources/stopes to keep the F levels under control.

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0 Great analysis

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