OUR TRACK RECORD
NEWCREST - SITE PROJECTS & TECHNICAL SUPPORT
The Details
TIMEFRAME: 2009 - 2022
CLIENT: Newcrest (now Newmont)
LOCATION: Western Australia | New South Wales | Papua New Guinea
COMMODITY: Gold
SERVICES: Subject Matter Expert | Process Plant Optimisation & Debottlenecking | Metallurgical Testwork Management
CADIA
Subject Matter Experts
TELFER
Debottlenecking Studies
WAISOI PROJECT
Metallurgical Testwork Management
Cadia Operations
Cadia is one of Australia’s largest gold mining operations, and Chemech’s Ian Edwards played a key role in the design, commissioning and optimisation of the process plant between 1996 and 2001.
Due to their site knowledge and technical expertise, Newcrest engaged Chemech in 2017 as subject matter experts for an independent review of the metallurgical testwork and design of their new Moly plant. Risks identified and recommendations made by Chemech were accepted, and Newcrest progressed the design and successfully commissioned the Moly plant in 2022.
Newcrest also engaged Chemech in 2022 as an Expert Witness for a complex legal matter related to the design and execution their expansion project.
Telfer Operations
Telfer is one of Australia’s largest gold mining operations having produced more than 15Moz since mining commenced in 1977. The new 18Mt/a processing plant was commissioned in 2004, and Chemech’s Ian Edwards played key roles in the owner's team for design and commissioning.
In 2008, Newcrest engaged Chemech to conduct a comprehensive debottlenecking study on the Telfer processing plant. The study assessed the capacity of the processing equipment and compared this to plant operating data to identify bottlenecks in plant throughput. Telfer were able to lift throughput to over 22Mt/a in subsequent years.
Waisoi Project - Namosi Joint Venture
Waisoi is a large copper porphyry deposit located in the south-eastern part of Viti Levu, the main island of the Republic of Fiji. A 2015 pre-feasibility study by Namosi identified a Reserve of 1.34Bt of copper and 3.7Moz of gold, to be recovered over a 51 year mine life.
As part of a pre-feasibility update for Waisoi in 2011, Newcrest engaged Chemech to provide technical support for a new metallurgical testwork program. Historical testwork was completed in 1979 (>500 tests) and Newcrest had concerns over its suitability for progressing process design.
The new program validated historical testwork using twinned drill holes, as well as increasing ore representivity by targeting rock types that were poorly represented. In addition to sample selection, testwork scoping, flowsheet development and testwork supervision, Chemech played a key role in linking the historical and new test results to an optimised flowsheet and process design.
Wafi Golpu
Wafi Golpu is a large undeveloped resource in Papua New Guinea with >5Moz of gold in reserves. In 2012, after finishing preliminary testwork and conceptual engineering, Newcrest engaged Chemech to assist with flowsheet selection prior to proceeding with variability and engineering testwork. The scope included identification of gold recovery improvements for the relatively complex refractory gold orebody.