SME Annual Meeting

Feb. 28-Mar. 03, 2010, Phoenix, AZ

Preprint 10-058

COMMISSIONING AND OPERATION OF THE MINERAL PARK CONCENTRATOR

M. Gorman, Mineral Park Inc., Golden Valley, AZ, USA

K. Leader, Mineral Park Inc., Golden Valley, AZ, USA
C. Smith, Mineral Park Inc., Golden Valley, AZ, USA

ABSTRACT
The Mineral Park Mine is an open pit copper-molybdenum mine
located in northwestern Arizona, approximately 74 miles southeast of
Las Vegas, Nevada. The property has been owned by the Duval
Corporation, Cyprus Mining Company and Equatorial Mining of
Australia. Mercator purchased Mineral Park from Equatorial in 2003.
Mineral Park commissioned a 25,000 tpd copper and
molybdenum concentrator in November and December of 2008.
The process includes two stage milling (SAG and Two Ball Mills)
fed by primary crushed ore. Metals are recovered in a copper-
molybdenum flotation circuit consisting of mechanically agitated
roughers and cleaners. The copper- molybdenum flotation concentrate
is thickened and further processed in the molybdenum flotation circuit
which separates the copper and molybdenum minerals into salable
concentrates. The molybdenum circuit also uses mechanically
agitated cells.
This paper describes the plant and some of the highlights of the Figure 1. The Mineral Park Copper/Moly concentrator process
commissioning process. flowchart.

DESIGN Crushing and grinding

The Mineral Park Copper/Moly concentrator is a facility designed
to process 25,000 tpd of copper and molybdenum ore grading 0.25%
Cu and 0.025% Mo. Mineral Park produces both copper and
molybdenum concentrates which are transported off site by truck.
The facility is located on engineered fill in the barren core of this
porphyry copper deposit. The plant uses the existing permitted tailings
dam that once served Duvall’s Mineral Park operations.
Construction on the facility commenced in 2007 with the mine
preparation of engineered backfill for the Grinding section. The facility
was commissioned in November 2008 as construction was being
completed.
The plant is unique because of this “fast track” approach:
Run-of-Mine ore is transported to an in-pit crushing plant with 100
ton haul trucks and dumped into a 200 ton crusher feed hopper. An
apron feeder delivers ore to a vibrating grizzley screen, the oversize
material feeds a 56" x 72" Traylor Jaw Crusher. Undersized and
crushed material is conveyed to a crushed ore stockpile via a 54” fixed
stacker. The crushing plant product is approximately 80% passing 6 to
8 inches. This unconventional equipment selection was based on
optical evaluation of actual broken faces in the exposed and developed
pit, where material from the pit was determined to run 80% minus 8” in
ROM condition. A second identical in-pit crushing facility will be
incorporated in Phase II.
Crushed ore is reclaimed using two 60” belt feeders located
underneath the stockpile. The crushed ore drops onto a 54” conveyor
that feeds the SAG mill.

• It was built without a completed detailed engineering phase The SAG mill is a 32’diameter x 14’ long, fixed speed mill driven
• No engineering group for construction management. The by two 3,000 hp motors. The SAG discharges to a vibrating screen
construction process was managed by Mineral Park fitted with 3/8” screen panels. Screen oversize is recycled to the SAG
personnel mill and screen undersize is split between two ball mill discharge
• Much of the procurement was done by Mineral Park sumps. The SAG mill is steel lined with 48 row, single height lifter
personnel design and charged with 5” balls.
• SAG mill was refurbished on site Each ball mill discharge sump feeds a cluster of 26” cyclones.
• Much of the detail work was completed in the field during The cyclone underflow feeds two 20’ diameter x 28’ long ball mills each
construction driven by a 7,000 hp synchronous motor. The cyclone overflows feed
• The milling facility and rougher flotation is outdoors in a the rougher flotation plant. The ball mills are rubber lined and charged
mostly temperate climate with 3” balls.
• The grinding mill and rougher flotation use a single tower
crane for maintenance The cyclone overflow is typically 70% passing 140 mesh.
• The plant was started with very few experienced operations Currently flotation collectors and milk of lime are added to the
people SAG mill feed. Frother is added to the cyclone overflow.
OPERATION Flotation
The process is described in Figure 1. Mineral Park flotation includes rougher flotation, copper/moly
cleaners and moly flotation.
1 Copyright © 2010 by SME

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The rougher flotation plant consists of five, 9,070 ft mechanically
agitated Wemco Cells. The flotation concentrates are combined and
pumped to the copper/moly cleaners. Rougher tailing are combined
with scavenger tailings and flow by gravity to the high-rate tails
thickener.
Copper/moly cleaner flotation includes regrinding to 80% passing
325 mesh in a 14’ diameter x 43’ tall Vertimill charged with 1 1/2 “
balls, followed by cleaning, recleaning and scavenging in sixteen, 300
3
ft Wemco cells.
The recleaner concentrate is pumped to a copper/moly thickener.
The scavenger tails are combined with the rougher tails and flow by
gravity to the tails thickener.
Thickened recleaner concentrate is conditioned with NaHS and
processed in the moly flotation circuit. The moly roughers are two
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banks of ten, 100 ft covered Wemco cells. Normally, the plant uses
only one bank of moly roughers. The rougher concentrate is combined
and further cleaned; the moly rougher tails is the final copper
concentrate. This concentrate is thickened and fed to our copper
concentrate filter press.
The moly rougher concentrate is conditioned again with NaHS
and cleaned in a single bank of first cleaners. The first cleaners are a
3
bank of ten, 100 ft covered Wemco cells. The first cleaner
concentrates are combined and further cleaned; the first cleaner tails
are recycled to the moly rougher feed.
The first cleaner concentrate is conditioned again with NaHS and
cleaned in a bank of second cleaners. The second cleaners are a
3
bank of ten, 100 ft covered Wemco cells. The second cleaners are
divided up into second re-cleaners (four cells), second cleaners (three
cells) and second cleaner scavengers (three cells). The concentrate
from each stage is fed forward. The final concentrate is fed to the
recleaner circuit, the tails recycled to the first cleaner feed.
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The moly recleaners are two banks of ten 24 ft Quinn cells, and
two 30” column cells. All four sets of equipment operate in parallel.
The Quinn Cells are divided into four stages of cleaning where the
concentrate is fed forward. The column cells operate as single stages
of flotation.
The Quinn cell tails are recycled to the first cleaners. The column
cell tails are recycled to the moly rougher feed.
Tails
The plant tailings are thickened to 50% solids and disposed of by
gravity through ceramic chokes to the tailings dam. Reclaimed and
thickener overflow water is pumped back to the mill.
OPERATING EXPERIENCE
We have learned a great deal about the consequences of the
design and the process itself since commissioning.
Consequences of the design
The benefits of skipping much of the detailed engineering were:
1. Save money and time allowing the plant to be completed for
$154 million in less than two years.
2. Allowed the Mineral Park Concentrator to survive the recent
down turn in copper and moly prices when similar operations
cut back production or shut down altogether.
The benefits of Mineral Park construction management are:
1. Mineral Park people know intimately how the equipment is
installed
2. Modifications to make the plant operator friendly that had to
be put off were being planned and discussed prior to
commissioning
3. There were few layers of management hindering the
commissioning process
Problems have included:
2 Copyright © 2010 by SME
SME Annual Meeting
Feb. 28-Mar. 03, 2010, Phoenix, AZ
1. Need to revise piping during commissioning. The gravity
tails line sloped uphill for several hundred feet from the tails
launder. We saw that the pipe looked wrong but we
assumed that it was an optical illusion and the pipe grade
was designed properly. Trying to get the tails to flow uphill
caused a great deal of frustration at startup.
2. Features found in modern operating plants, such as column
cells for molybdenum cleaning, were not included in the
Mineral Park design.
3. Fresh water requirement was underestimated even though
historic raw water demand for Arizona flotation mills was well
known.
4. Equipment placement not ideal. Vertical pumps were placed
in pump boxes that are inaccessible by forklift or overhead
crane. The pumps are too long to be lifted out the pump box
due to a lack of clearance between the box and the next
deck up.
5. Protracted arguments with motor supplier for the SAG mill
regarding their refurbishment quality control.
6. Access to work areas is not ideal due to lack of stairs and
walkways. Many decks could only be accessed from one
location causing people to walk all the way down stairs to get
upstairs on the other end of the building.
7. The cooling systems were designed to mine supplied raw
water temperatures that proved inadequate for outdoor use
in the summer.
8. The tower crane was purchased used and took several
months to get it reliable.
9. Long, costly period of time for operators to get trained while
operating. The inexperienced operators made errors that
were not anticipated by experienced supervisors. Examples
include filling and overloading a down ball mill with sand
twice and damaging the discharge end bearings and
jumpering out interlocks on a concentrate thickener and
damaging its drive.
Lessons learned about the process include
1. The effect of acidic ore on the mill’s performance was never
fully considered.
a. The acidic material contains oxide copper and
molybdenum, forcing ore control to blend for sulfide
minerals instead of total copper and molybdenum.
b. The acidic material froths significantly causing
operational problems.
c. The acidic material consumes a great deal of lime,
impacting economics.
2. Ore types impact performance but little ongoing classification
was done to prior to start up help describe problems. The
ore is reported by the pit and elevation even though different
rock types (gneiss, schist…) are present; not tracking ore
types prevents us from knowing how the mill will perform
prior to receiving ore.
3. Consultants were valuable early in the operation. Once
Mineral Park process people understood the plant, the
consultants were more useful for brainstorming than actually
providing fixes. This is to be anticipated because most of
the obvious mistakes were fixed quickly and we were left
with problems that were more difficult.
4. Column cells are preferred over Quinn cells to reach a
molybdenum grade reliably in excess of 48% Mo.