CHANGCHUN GOLD RESEARCH INSTITUTE

Study and application of mineral processing and metallurgy in Wulaga Gold Mine

There are two mining districts in Wulaga gold mine, the east and the west, and the west district hosts refractory ore to both mineral processing and metallurgy. As the resources in the east district depleting and the development of the west district, the main operational indexes of the mineral processing plant have been distinctly decreasing due to the increase of the ore supplied from the west district. The west area has higher clay contents, causing difficulty in crushing, over sized particle of mill feeding, and fine milling. And further more, large amount of clay in ore is hard to settle, which causes abnormal running with muddy overflow in the operations of concentrate reagent removal and washing. The flotation recovery of the run of mine ore and the leaching recovery of the concentrate are all lower.
Since August, 2007, Changchun Gold Research institute carried out comprehensive technological studies on the mineral processing and metallurgical problems of Wulaga mine, dramatically improved the technology indexes for the refractory ores in the west area of Wulaga gold mine with stable operation, and the mineral resources were fully utilized. By October, 2008, the total recovery of gold was increased to 74.17% from previous 58.31%. Although the milling size was even fine, a milling capacity of 1590 t/d was still reached via effectively using the potentials in crushing and milling. After the technology renovation, 119.893Kg of more gold was produced, adding 19,782,345of production value and 11,216,739 as profit tax, and the main technology indexes of the mineral processing plant ware distinctly improved and the overall economic results significant.This project was awarded the second prize for science and technology development by China Gold Association in 2008.