049InLinePressureJigPre ConcentrationPlantAtThePirquitasMine PDF
049InLinePressureJigPre ConcentrationPlantAtThePirquitasMine PDF
049InLinePressureJigPre ConcentrationPlantAtThePirquitasMine PDF
2.
Georges Delemontex
Senior Process Engineer
Gekko Systems Pty Ltd.
321 Learmonth Road, Ballarat, Victoria, 3350, Australia.
Email: georgesd@gekkos.com
3.
Nigel Grigg
General Manager – South America
Gekko Systems S.A.
Augusto, Leguia Norte 100
Of. 613, Las Condes
Santiago, Chile
Email: nigelg@gekkos.com
4.
Trevor Yeomans
Director of Metallurgy
Silver Standard Resources Inc.
999 West Hastings Street
Suite 1400
Vancouver, B.C.
Canada V6C 2W2
Email: tyeomans@silverstandard.com
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ABSTRACT
Gekko Systems Pty Ltd engaged in the test work, design, manufacturing and commissioning of the pre-
concentration plant at Silver Standard Resources Inc’s Pirquitas mine in the north western Jujuy province of
Argentina. Testing of the ore at coarse feeds of between 2 and 12mm returned probable recoveries of up to
a total of 95% silver into 50% of the mass fed to the InLine Pressure Jigs (IPJ’s). The plant has been
designed and built based on the test results to include a preparation screen to bypass the fines that are
naturally higher in grade and repulping of the coarse which is then pumped to three parallel trains of 2-stage
IPJ roughing-scavenging. The target 50% yield to concentrate passes over a dewatering screen and the
solids are returned back to the mill feed conveyor. The IPJ tails are transferred to a dewatering screen and
solid rejects are stockpiled off the end of a transfer conveyor. All dewatered underflow products are
processed via hydrocyclones to recover dirty water for use back into the IPJ circuit and return entrained fines
to the fines bypass line.
With the sulphide orebody being processed, the results from operations to date have shown that plant
performance is matching the original laboratory sulphide ore testwork data. The objective of the pre-
concentration step is to both reject gangue and achieve grades between 300-400g/t Ag to the float circuit as
flotation recoveries are maximised within this range. The plant currently achieves overall upgrades of
approximately 150% of feed grade with the IPJ only circuit producing an average 180% increase from
calculated feed grade.
INTRODUCTION
Gekko Systems Pty Ltd (Gekko) were requested by Silver Standard Resources Inc (Silver Standard) in 2006
to investigate the use of the InLine Pressure Jig (IPJ) to pre-concentrate the silver, zinc, tin ore from their
Pirquitas deposit. Silver Standard had previously carried out jigging test work to pre-concentrate the ore and
found it to be very successful (Hatch, 2006).
The following sections of this paper describe the test work program, results, plant design, manufacture and
commissioning of an InLine Pressure Jig based pre-concentration plant. Recent plant performance data is
compared to the test work data.
BACKGROUND
Pirquitas Mine
Silver Standard Resources Inc (Silver Standard) acquired the Pirquitas mine in October 2004 when it
completed the purchase of 100% of Sunshine Argentina Inc.
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The Pirquitas mine is a silver, zinc and tin deposit located in the extreme north west of Argentina in the
province of Jujuy as shown in Fig. 1. The project is located in mountainous terrain at altitudes ranging
between 4000m to 4520m above sea level.
According to the Feasibility study (Hatch, 2006) eighty to ninety percent of the potentially economic material
is made up of siliceous non-sulfide gangue composed of intergrown quartz and feldspar grains in a
micaceous matrix. Five to twenty percent of the mineralization is made up of sulfides, which is mostly pyrite,
and is commonly associated with silver, zinc and tin. From mineralogical studies, the silver was reported as
being present primarily as silver sulphides and sulphosalts, containing high concentrations of silver, with
most of the silver mineral grains in the range of 20 to 100µm in size. The zinc occurs primarily as medium to
coarse grained sphalerite. Grain sizes up to 800µm were reported with 30 to 150µm the more typical size
range. Tin occurs as aggregates of cassiterite crystals ranging from 5 to 15 μm, often intergrown with pyrite.
In 1997 and 1998 gravity concentration test work was carried out and indicated pre-concentrating the
Pirquitas ore by jigging, after crushing to ½ inch was expected to recover approximately 50% of the crushed
ore as mill feed, while only losing three to five percent of the silver and tin.
The benefits of pre-concentration to the Pirquitas project included keeping equipment smaller due to the
issues with construction and operation at high altitudes, avoidance of smelter penalties when lower mine
grades are processed and more metal production from the plant.
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After the 2006 feasibility study by Hatch Engineering (Hatch, 2006), it was expected the ore would be
processed by sequential crushing, screening and pre-concentration jigging (gravity). The jig concentrate and
fines would be treated by grinding, selective silver flotation and sulphide/zinc flotation from which the zinc
can be floated to a saleable grade concentrate. The sulphide/zinc tailings are then treated by gravity and
flotation circuits for tin recovery to a saleable grade tin concentrate (Fig. 2).
Pirquitas Proven and Probable mineral reserves (MacRae and McCrea, 2008) were estimated in house to be
30.4 million tonnes grading 199.6g Ag/t, 0.82% Zn and 0.22% Sn including the historical jig tailings. At a
processing (crushing) rate of 6000tpd, planned mine life is 15 years.
Silver Standard commissioned the milling/flotation circuit on December 1st, 2009 at 4000tpd. The
commissioning of the pre-concentration IPJ circuit in the 3rd quarter 2010 has resulted in an increase in
processing rate to 6000tpd. Forecast (Silver Standard Resources Inc, 2011) silver production for 2011 is 8.5
million ounces of silver.
• The IPJ is unique in its design and use of jigging concepts in that the unit combines a circular bed
with a moveable sieve action.
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• The screen is pulsed vertically by a hydraulically driven shaft with the length of the stroke and speed
of the up and down stroke varied to suit the application.
• Screen aperture, ragging dimension and ragging material can also be altered for the application.
• Inside the IPJ, the particles are kept submerged in the slurry thus eliminating the loss of hydrophobic
fine particles at the air/slurry interface of conventional jigs.
• The submerged slurry also acts as a pseudo heavy media suspension above the jig bed greatly
assisting the separation performance of the IPJ.
• Separation of valuable minerals from gangue particles occurs based on relative density as well as
particle size and shape.
• High specific gravity particles are drawn into the concentrate hutch during the suction stroke of the
bed and are continuously discharged while the lighter gangue is continuously discharged over the
tailboard to the outer cone.
Extensive gravity characterisation testwork was conducted at Gekko’s laboratory in Ballarat. The test work
flow sheet is presented in Fig. 4. Key tests conducted during the program include size distribution analyses,
single pass tabling tests of a +1.7mm -3.35mm size fraction and dense media “Viking Cone” testing of
+3.35mm -13.32mm and +3.35mm -9.5mm size fractions.
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-1.7 mm material
+ 1.7 mm to - 3.35 mm fraction +3.35 mm to -9.5 mm material
Dry, weigh and assay
Three sulphide ore samples (#40, #26 and #17) of varying grades (Table 1) were tested for Ag, Zn and Sn
recovery using Gekko’s Viking Cone dense media separator. The Viking cone is similar to an Ericsson cone
and uses a dynamic process to determine the sink float characteristics of an ore. The test is particularly
suited to determining the recovery and mass yield that can be obtained using the IPJ at coarse sizes. The
mass yield to concentrate from these tests is used to specify the required mass pull from the IPJ.
The test results for the +3.35 and -13.5mm secondary crushed material were particularly good. Both silver
and tin reported to the concentrate at mass yields less than 50%.
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The results for Ag and Sn recovery in Figs. 5 and 6, show that recoveries in excess of 95% are achievable
for all three samples, at a mass yield of approximately 50%. Zinc recovery was lower as show in Fig. 7
indicating poorer liberation of the zinc minerals at the crush size tested.
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
Ag Recovery
50%
40%
30%
#40 Sample
20% #26 Sample
#17 Sample
10%
0%
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
Mass Yield
Fig. 5: Silver recovery versus mass yield from Gekko test work
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
Sn Recovery
50%
40%
30%
#40 Sample
20% #26 Sample
#17 Sample
10%
0%
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
Mass Yield
Fig. 6: Tin recovery versus mass yield from Gekko test work
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100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
Zn Recovery
50%
40%
30%
#40 Sample
20% #26 Sample
#17 Sample
10%
0%
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
Mass Yield
Fig. 7: Zinc recovery versus mass yield from Gekko test work
The test work also showed a natural concentration of silver in the fines (-1.7mm) after crushing to minus
12mm with its grade typically twice that of the head grade.
Overall the test work indicated treating plus 1.7mm minus 12mm will result in 95% recovery of silver into 50%
mass.
PLANT DESIGN
The main design parameters for the plant after communication with Silver Standard were 95% recovery of
silver and tin into 50% of the mass from the +2mm to -12mm stream. Throughput to the IPJ’s was specified
as 214 tph.
The recovery needed to be maximised and mass pull to concentrate was too high for a single pass jigging
stage so a two stage rougher-scavenger jigging circuit was used. This type of circuit was used very
successfully at the former Lihir Gold Ballarat Goldfields Project in Australia (Gray and Hughes, 2007). The
final design consisted of two stages of three IPJ2400 model InLine Pressure Jigs connected in parallel in a
rougher scavenger configuration as indicated in the Process Flow Diagram shown in Fig. 8. The throughput
rate for the IPJ2400 was de-rated from a nominal 100tph to 75tph due to the high mass pull to concentrate
required in this application and resulted in the use of three parallel trains of IPJ’s.
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Crushed run-of-mine ore is fed to an existing fine ore screen. A diversion gate in the feed chute to the screen
allows the feed to be bypassed around the pre-concentration process. The fine ore screen splits the feed at
2mm, producing material in the size range, +2mm to -12mm, as feed to the Gekko plant, at a rate of 214 tph.
The dry feed is mixed with water recycled from the IPJ products to approximately 50% solids and is pumped
to the Rougher InLine Pressure Jigs (Stream 1 – Fig. 8).
The IPJ Feed pump (Warman 6/6 gravel pump), feeds a distributor vessel on top of the IPJ platform. The
pump’s speed is controlled by a variable speed drive to ensure that the pipe velocity of the slurry is greater
than the settling velocities of the coarse particles (>4 m/s).
The IPJs use an internal screen with 18mm apertures and the ragging used is 30mm in diameter and has a
specific gravity (SG) of 3.2. The large ragging size was selected to allow the jigging bed to be open and free,
which is necessary for the high mass pull.
The tails from the rougher IPJs (Stream 3) report to the in-series scavenger IPJs. The scavenger IPJs tails
(Stream 5) flow to the tails dewatering screen. The dewatered tail particles (+1 mm) pass to the existing
conveyor, while the water and fine solids pass to a combined screen undersize/cyclone feed sump. The
concentrates from the rougher (Stream 2) and scavenger IPJs combined (Stream 4) flow to the concentrate
dewatering screen and the water and fine solids also pass to the combined screen undersize/cyclone feed
sump.
The water and minus 1mm particles are pumped to a cyclone cluster designed to remove any liberated fines
from the recycled water. The cycloned water overflow is sent back to the gravity circuit’s 40m3 dirty water
tank for re-use in the IPJ’s. The cyclone underflow is directed to a sump along with a bleed of dirty water to
reduce the build up of ultra-fines in the circuit. A pump transfers this fine material directly to the ball mill
discharge hopper where it is then pumped to the cyclones in this grinding circuit.
The de-watered IPJ concentrates report to the ball mill feed conveyor.
The de-watered IPJ tailings report to the rejects stockpile for disposal.
The scope of Gekko’s supply for the project was expanded from just the IPJ supply to frames, feed pump,
product and tailings dewatering screens, water recycle circuit, PLC control and SCADA system and motor
control centres. This enabled Gekko to control the way the circuit was engineered to ensure it matched the
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requirements of the IPJ’s and allowed Silver Standard to have one supplier answerable for the performance
of the circuit from pumping to de-watering. It also allowed the circuit to be installed independently of the
main grinding circuit.
The overall pre-concentration plant layout as modelled by Pro-E 3D modelling software is shown in Fig. 9.
The plant was fabricated, trial assembled and factory commissioned at the Gekko’s factory in Ballarat,
Australia in 26 weeks. Upon successful completion of factory commissioning (see Fig. 10), the plant was
marked, disassembled, packed into containers and shipped to site.
Fig. 10: Pirquitas two stage gravity concentration plant assembled at Gekko, Ballarat
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After arrival at the Pirquitas mine site, a local team of construction personnel mechanically installed the
majority of the hardware, including frames, equipment and pipe work, following a Gekko designed modular
system that allowed them to construct in a Meccano-set style approach with little interaction from Gekko.
Electrical instrumentation and drives were then installed under supervision and assistance from Gekko
electricians.
Gekko provided services throughout the installation and commissioning period that included personnel with
specific expertise in mechanical, electrical, process control, metallurgy and training. This enabled Gekko to
provide the technical expertise to resolve issues rapidly and provide the essential knowledge sharing and
relationships to ensure the project will be a long term success.
Despite language barriers, Pirquitas mine staff and Gekko worked together and provided the required
resources from both sides with language skills that ensured focus and progress of the project was
maintained at all times.
PLANT PERFORMANCE
During commissioning, throughput to the IPJ circuit was reduced to 130 tph to ensure that each bottleneck
was identified and rectified prior to the next staged increase. It also allowed time for the crushing circuit to
be upgraded to the design 6000tpd capacity. On several occasions the plant was taken to rates of up to
230-240tph for short periods or 165-170tph feed to IPJs, but these were for periods too short to monitor
recovery performance.
The initial lower than designed crushing circuit throughput resulted in the opening up of the screens in the
crushing circuit to increase crushing rates and resulted in material up to 25mm reporting to the circuit.
Although the +12.7mm material was less than 1% of the feed to the IPJ’s, occasionally stray rocks up to
100mm would enter the circuit and lead to immediate blockages and often significant delays in operation.
This lead to the installation of a 25mm scalping screen on top of the 2mm banana screen and the blockage
issues were resolved. Ultimately the mine should be targeting 20mm if not 15mm aperture screens to
ensure that all feed has equal opportunity to report to concentrate and to minimise the hang up of coarse 20-
25mm in the IPJ beds. The majority of these larger rocks were also noted to be heavily mineralised and
should have gone to concentrate, but could not due to the internal IPJ screen size.
The IPJ 3.2 SG ragging used in the first fill was soon replaced with 5.5 SG ceramic and 7.0 SG steel as the
heavily mineralised coarse rocks mentioned previously were found to displace the ragging out of the inner
rings of the IPJ bed. Once the ragging was displaced there was no restriction of flow of feed to concentrate
and the concentrate grade was subsequently diluted. In the end the beds all had a mixed bed of these
ragging types, but they generally went from high densities in the inner rings to the lighter in the outer rings.
The ragging size was generally 30mm for the 3.2 and 5.5 ragging, but the steel was commercially available
ball bearing and grinding media at 25mm.
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During November 2010, operational data was collected from the plant to provide an understanding of the
performance of the process. A typical mass balance is shown in Fig. 11 and indicates the tonnage, silver
grade and recovery expectations of the plant.
Banana Screen Feed
180 tph 180 g/t
32400 g
Jig Plant Feed Total Plant Feed
130 tph 132 g/t 260 tph 180 g/t
17086 g 46800 g
Jig Feed to Mill Auxiliary Feeder
100 tph 300 g/t 80 tph 180 g/t
93% Rec 30000 g 14400 g
Total Feed to Mill
180 tph 247 g/t
44400 g
Target Feed
180 tph 300 g/t
54000 g
Due to the lower tonnes produced from the crushing plant than designed, passing all of the ore through the
IPJs would regularly produce insufficient feed to the grinding circuit and cause starved conditions that would
produce finer grinds and in turn lower silver recoveries in the flotation circuit. In addition, the bypass of -2mm
to the ball mill discharge increased the “efficiency” of the ball mill which also enhanced the grind produced.
Recommendations were made to reduce the layers of ragging in the IPJ beds to provide higher concentrate
production, however this was not supported by site as focus was to produce high grades from the IPJ circuit
and proceed slowly on process changes to enable an improved understanding of the IPJ variables to be
made.
The splits or yields of the various products namely the fines bypassed directly to grinding circuit, concentrate
stream and tails produced; are shown in Fig. 12. The actual grade to the grinding circuit is diluted by the
auxiliary feed (as shown in the mass balance in Fig. 11 and depicted in Fig. 12) used to make up the tonnes
for the appropriate ball mill load.
Pirquitas Jig Tonnes Production
400.0 100%
90%
350.0
80%
300.0
70%
250.0
60%
Tonnage (tph)
200.0 50%
40%
150.0
30%
100.0
20%
50.0
10%
0.0 0%
Date
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Fig. 13 shows the budget of silver metal production and the minimum target grade of the feed to the grinding
circuit by the horizontal line. The vertical bars indicate the metal feed per hour to the grinding circuit
inclusive of the diluted feed from the auxiliary feeder with recoveries in the 90-95% region (excluding
auxiliary feeder material). The O to X shows the increase in grade to the grinding circuit which depicts an
average of 153% grade increase (inclusive of auxiliary feeder), however the grade improvement across the
IPJs alone shows an average 201% increase prior to auxiliary feeder dilution.
Pirquitas Jig Plant Daily Actual Metal vs Budget
100000
90000 500
80000
400
70000
Mill Feed Grade (g/t)
Metal To Mill (g/hr)
60000
300
50000
40000
200
30000
20000
100
10000
0 0
Date
Fig. 13: Silver grade and metal feed rate to the Pirquitas milling circuit
The higher grinding circuit feed grade for Pirquitas was found to be very important for flotation recovery.
Grinding circuit feed grades maintained in the 300-400g/t Ag range compared to the average 180g/t Ag mine
production grade were found to produce superior flotation recoveries generally providing a 10-20%
improvement in performance and at higher than planned flotation concentrate grades. This somewhat
unexpected benefit reduced smelter penalties and improved overall economics.
The actual results are very encouraging as the data follows the main trend and stays within the variances
seen in the Gekko testwork results (Fig. 14).
Pirquitas ‐ Actual Performance vs Testwork Data
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
Silver Recovery (%)
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
% Mass Yield
Fig. 14: Silver recovery versus mass yield for test work versus plant data
Fig. 15 depicts the distribution of silver metal at the Pirquitas project. The auxiliary feeder input is at the
mined grade without any beneficiation, added to the post IPJ processing and the minus 2mm stream and fed
directly to the grinding circuit. The fines were found to be naturally high in grade but are only generally
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around 20% of the feed material and are bypassed directly to the ball mill discharge hopper. The +2mm
material is fed to the IPJ circuit and split approximately 50:50 to concentrate and tail and upgrades the
concentrate by approximately 180% of jig feed grade. Tails are sent to the rejects pile at grades typically
between 10 and 30g/t Ag.
Pirquitas Jig Plant Metal Deportation
100%
90%
80%
70%
Metal Deportation (%)
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
Date
Apart from the lower than planned tonnage mentioned previously, the pre-concentration circuit operated as
planned producing a higher grade to the grinding circuit for greater silver production and higher recoveries.
There were some challenges with the pre-concentration circuit experienced during commissioning and
optimisation. These included:
• Excessively large rock entering the plant that contributed to low availability due to blockages and
excessive wear to sections of the plant’s pipe work. This issue was resolved by retrofitting a
scalping screen strapped to the banana screen. Although not ideal it did perform OK and eliminated
the blockage problems that were being experienced. However due to spatial limitations, the
modification restricted flow and hence feed tonnes that could be fed to the banana screen.
Eventually a properly installed safety scalping screen will need to be installed into this circuit to
remove this bottleneck.
• Pumping of coarse gravel without any fines proved to be challenging as most pump models take into
account the fines to assist in the transport of the coarser material. Higher than expected pipe
velocities were required to maintain proper operation of the gravel pumps, but the higher velocities
lead to accelerated wear. The high level of instrumentation and control in the plant logic system
allowed a modified operational philosophy to operate the pumps according to this essential criterion.
Severe wear was mainly found in the suction of the IPJ feed pump and extended life in this area was
achieved with design changes to the flow pattern of the material to the pump’s suction inlet and
improved material selection to line these parts.
• Controlling the split of concentrate yield on high mass pull circuits is largely attributed to machine
variables (i.e. screen size, ragging density and size, ragging depth) as opposed to traditional thinking
where operating variables (i.e. stroke length and pulse frequency) play the larger role. In “through-
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bed” jigs, the machine variables make up 80% of the yield characteristics and the operating variables
are used to fine tune the yield. This change in concept is difficult to transfer to operators that have
experience in traditional jigging culture. This does not always provide the flexibility that some
operations would like, but generally in relatively steady state plants these machine variables will not
alter significantly once the right operating parameters are established.
CONCLUSIONS
The performance of Silver Standard Resources Inc’s silver pre-concentration plant utilising InLine Pressure
Jigs has verified the scale-up from test work to plant performance. The challenges of dealing with truncated
coarse feeds have been overcome by mine and Gekko personnel and resulted in a robust operating plant
that is exceeding its targets.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors would like to acknowledge Silver Standard Resources Inc and Gekko Systems Pty Ltd for their
permission to publish this paper.
REFERENCES
Gray, S, Hughes, T, 2007. A Focus on Gravity and Flotation Concentration and Intensive Leaching Rewrites
Conventional Milling Circuit Design and Improves Environmental and Cost Outcomes, paper presented to World Gold
Conference 2007, Cairns, 22-24 October 2007.
Gray, S, and Hughes, T, 2008. Improvements in the InLine Pressure Jig expands its applications and ease of use for
gold, silver, sulphide and diamond recovery, in Proceedings Metallurgical Plant Design and Operating Strategies 2008,
(Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Perth).
Hatch Engineering and Mine Development Associates, 2006, 43-101 Silver Standard Resources Pirquitas Silver, and Tin
Project, 9 May 2006.
MacRae, PS and McCrea, JS, 2008. Silver Standard Resources Inc, Technical Report on Minas Pirquitas, Silver, Tin and
Zinc Project, Jujuy Province, Argentina, 29 September 2008, Available from www.silverstandard.com [Accessed: 01 May
2011]
Silver Standard Resources Inc, 2011. Silver Standard Reports Fourth Quarter and Year-End 2010 Results, 1 March
2011, Press Release available from www.silverstandard.com [Accessed 01 May 2011]
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