Tasiast is already seeing the benefits of a newly installed elution system. With the new system, which is part of the process of extracting gold through heat, the site has reduced the elution time from 14 hours to eight, allowing production targets to be safely and efficiently achieved.
Managed by the site’s Processing Projects team, the construction of the new elution system was challenging as it was necessary. The challenge was to keep the existing elution system fully operational while the new system was being constructed; and the new system was necessary because the old heater and eluate tank were operating above capacity, resulting in frequent failures of the boiler system and pumps.
The upgraded system more than doubled the thermal capacity of the heater from 960 kilowatts to 2,350 kilowatts.
In addition to the new heater, the project upgraded the thermal oil pumping system, two recovery heat exchangers, a 20m3 (cubic metres) eluent tank and two 15kW positive displacement mono pumps.
The new boiler and heater exchanger system can now safely bring the solution to the required temperature even at a flow rate almost three times as high as before.
“This is a great achievement and credit goes out to all who were involved with the project, especially given the tight timeline to keep everything up and operating while we worked quickly,” said Wayne Gaiter, Processing Manager, Tasiast.
It took over 5,100 man-hours to construct the new system, with commissioning successfully completed over a 72 hour period.
Wayne Gaiter, Processing Manager, Tasiast, (first row in the pink shirt) with some of the team members who worked on the project
