CDE Mining has partnered with Arrium Mining to process and convert almost 17 million tons of low grade iron ore fines in waste dumps into saleable product.
The investment involves the provision of two new processing plants in Australia, with the first to be located at Arrium’s Iron Knob mining location in South Australia.
This plant will process the stockpiles of low grade iron ore that have accumulated over time at the Iron Monarch and Iron Princess deposits and will then target processing of the local scree ore deposit. It will have an annual processing capacity of 1.8 million tons, a feed rate of 250 tons per hour and will run for 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
The second plant will be located at the Iron Baron site, processing its stockpile before progressing into the Iron Empress and Iron Baroness Scree ore deposits. The plant will be integrated into the front end of an existing gravity separation circuit, and will be fed at a rate of 700 tons per hour for an annual processing capacity of 6.1 million tons.
The upgrading of the iron content of the low grade dumps will involve removing silica and alumina from the feed material. The plant will also remove clays from the feed material and the combined effect will see the iron content increase from between 43.4 per cent and 52.7 per cent in the feed to nominally a 60 per cent iron ore product.
The processing plants will also use a range of equipment from CDE’s product portfolio.