Diamond recovery at Jwaneng mine, Botswana.
The Jwaneng Modular Tailings Treatment Plant has been hailed as a first for Debswana, with the technology expected to be replicated in the other Debswana operations. This was said by the General Manager of Jwaneng Mine, Albert Milton during an open day for the MTTP project in Jwaneng on Thursday.
Milton explained that the tailings resource at Jwaneng was a valuable and strategic asset to Debswana, with which the modular plant would be used to recover the diamonds in there, creating revenue of up to P22bn in 20 years. He said “this project entails the construction of a fit-for-purpose plant which will treat up to 2 million tonnes of ore a year and 17 million carats over the life of the Plant. MTTP must therefore be seen as another huge milestone for Jwaneng Mine.”
The project manager for the MTTP project, Moleko Majaha, shed light on some of the milestones of the project since construction commenced in 2012. ”The safety performance of this project has been impeccable. We have managed to complete 1.6 million man hours without any injuries to any of the staff members on site and it is a record we are immensely proud of,” he said, pointing out that for a construction project its size, it is exceptional.
Mahaja stated that the plant is expected to start processing ore from September 2014. Even though the plant is designed such that it can be relocated to a different site where necessary, the 37 million tons of tailings resource that it will be processing will take the entire life of the plant to finish. Plaudits were attributed to the construction team led by Doug Hambidge as well as the contractor companies doing work on site.
The Debswana Project Lead, Johannes Rademan paid tribute to the men and women who have been part of the project from the start. Rademan highlighted the fact that unlike most projects its size carried out at Debswana, the MTTP project has been carried out by internal resources.
”What Debswana has demonstrated is that our people are highly capable of carrying out big projects like these. We did not see the need to engage a foreign specialist company to do this and so far the results of our own home grown people speak for themselves,” he added. Rademan also revealed that the same modular concept was being considered for Letlhakane tailings resource and that some of the skilled people who did the Jwaneng Modular Plant would be deployed to Letlhakane.
