Premier African Minerals Needs $4M For Mining Project

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Premier African Minerals requires about $4 million to start developing open pit mining and processing operations at its RHA Tungsten project 20 kilometres South East of Hwange. PAM holds a 49 percent interest in the tungsten project while the remaining 51 percent stake is held by the National Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Board. The mining company assigned a consultancy company to complete a Preliminary Economic Assessment of the RHA Tungsten Mine and the exercise was completed in August 2013. The mine plan presented in the PEA consisted of an open pit followed by an underground operation, with a combined life of 6 years at a Run of Mine production rate of 192 000 tonnes per year. “Economic assessment results highlight the potential of RHA Tungsten to develop an open pit mining and processing operation with a capital requirement of $4,77 million which includes a 20 percent contingency.“ Hand sorting is expected to reduce the mill feed to 5 000 tonnes per month,” said the company in a statement. PAM said CAE Mining, the world’s leading range of integrated mining solutions company has completed an update of the mineral resources taking into account an additional 12 inclined diamond drill holes totalling 1 300,7 million of drilling in the second drill campaign,which was completed in December 2013.

The mining company engaged the local mineral processing company, Peacocke and Simpson which has undertaken laboratory scale metallurgical test work to determine the most appropriate process route and to define recoveries and concentrate grade. “Subsequent to laboratory scale investigation test work carried out, additional test work has been undertaken on pilot scale upon an 800 kg sample as a proof of concept for recovery of tungsten trioxide via gravity concentration methods. The test work resulted in an overall recovery of 82, 8 percent at a final product concentrate of 63 percent,” said PAM. Since completion of the PEA, PAM approached Appropriate Process Technology for a quotation to fabricate and commission a processing plant. PAM said APT completed a plant design, a cost estimate and provided a firm quote for the supply and commissioning of the plant. The total cost is $2 million including erection and commissioning on site. PAM is currently investigating the use of the historic tailings facility as a start-up strategy for the first 12 months.

*The Herald news department was not involved in the creation of this content. 

Modular Testwork Facilities now available: APT launches Field Assay Laboratory

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APT is proud to announce the addition of a fully equipped modular testwork facilities, the field assay laboratory, to its range of modular minerals process solutions. As with all APT plants, these laboratories are pre-specified and supplied in “quick-fit” kit form to allow rapid manufacturing on site and to make them quickly and easily trans-locatable for exploration companies.

APT is initially launching 3 variants of laboratory, all of which are housed in a 9 x 9 m open-sided roof structure with drop-down sides to take advantage of breezes in hot climates, and provide protection against the elements when required. The structure is pre-wired with plug ‘n’ play electrical reticulation and pressurized water distribution systems, and where necessary instrument air systems, all part of APT supply. The customer simply needs to supply a slab on which the structure is erected by an APT team, add water to the tank and power to the distribution board, or alternatively diesel to the APT-supplied gen-set.

All lab variants also include a purpose-design, insulated, vented and air-conditioned containerised section for wet chemistry, final analysis and sterile conditions.

Each lab type includes sample preparation from jaw crushing to pulverising, sample splitting and pressure filtration of pulp samples. These sections are housed in the main shed, with water washdown points, wet areas, shelving and sample storage, etc. The diversification begins downstream of sample preparation.

The GOLD EXPLORATION MODULE is supplied with milling and gravity concentration equipment to deal with and account for nugget effect, and bottle-roll BLEG systems with AA Spectra finish, at up to 200 samples per day. The field lab deals only with recoverable gold, but BLEG residues can be sampled for off-site assay to provide a recoverable gold/total gold factor.

The GOLD LEACH PLANT MODULE takes the exploration module one step further with the inclusion of activated carbon assay and equipment for monitoring of gold leach plant operation.

The NON-GOLD MODULE is provided with EDAX X-Ray Fluorescence analytical facilities for dealing with a wide range of elements from base metals to industrial minerals. Detection limits vary, and for very low-grade applications APT can supply concentration systems to allow target elements in ores or soils to be upgraded to detectable ranges. After all, if it doesn’t upgrade in a lab, it’s not going to upgrade in a plant, so pack the lab and move to the next target.

All APT FIELD ASSAY LABORATORIES have several sub-systems in common, allowing APT to use top quality equipment at competitive prices, and making the modules accessible to even modest mining and exploration operations. Gone are the days of drilling or digging or sampling, and then waiting days or weeks for result. APT puts the power of quick-turnaround assays into your hands.

Mobile Exploration and Production Kit Now Launched by APT

The above mobile exploration and production kit has now been launched by APT. 

The aim of this minerals recovery and exploration kit is found in taking small and medium scale exploration and production to a new level, and enabling smaller mines to grow and develop on a more suitable budget, without compromising on quality but rather creating something better than what is out there today. This goes hand-in-hand with our philosophy of not only creating equipment, but rather creating solutions to problems faced in the industry today, and furnishing the smaller scale mining sector with plants that can take them to the next level.

The RG30-T Production Kit allows optimal mobility by means of a complete mining kit mounted on a rugged trailer. The concept behind the mobile solution was driven by the need for reducing the risk and costs involved in the exploration process, while enabling greater production and therefore optimum profit to be made. Furthermore, it enables the operator to anticipate future stumbling blocks in the mining process ahead of feeding to the main plant, by providing the ability to process large bulk samples through to small concentrates.

The Exploration and Production Kit combines the RG30 and GoldKacha Mark 4, with Goldkonka Up- Grader and GoldJigga Field Jig and ancillary equipment, into a robust configuration which fits onto a neatly designed trailer, allowing you to move from resource to resource. The RG30-T is a fully functioning system and does not require interface with other machinery.

The process begins at the RG30 scrubber, and the leading features are outlined here. Firstly, the GoldKacha takes larger mass pull to concentrate than competing equipment, therefore a very high primary recovery is achieved. The RG30 also has a deep belly drum together with an integral high efficiency trommel screen, allowing for both clay disintegration and the improvement of gold liberation from host material. The feed from the RG30 scrubber is then passed to the GoldKacha Concentrator via gravity, eliminating the need for additional pumps.

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(MKTW) Desert Gold Ventures Commences a Mining Feasibility Study on Its Barani East Project in Western Mali

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TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwired - Jun 2, 2014) - Desert Gold Ventures Inc. (TSX VENTURE:DAU) (the "Company" or "Desert Gold") is pleased to record extensive metallurgical test work conducted on bulk mining samples from the recently drilled and sampled Barani East Gold Deposit (the "Deposit") indicates gold recoveries up to 85%. The company is currently engaged in a feasibility study to support fundraising for the development of a mine on the deposit.

Process Design

A two ton bulk sample of ore collected from the Barani east prospect was submitted to Peacocke Simpson & Associates (Pty) Ltd's minerals processing laboratory in Harare, Zimbabwe for bulk metallurgical work.

The company has commissioned an engineering design team from Appropriate Process Technologies (Pty) Ltd (Johannesburg, South Africa) ("APT") for plant design. APT specialises in the manufacturing of modular mineral processing plants and are designing a plant to optimise the economic exploitation of the resource. The latest tests indicate that a low capital cost plant comprising a wash and screen (2 mm) circuit, with minor crushing, feeding to a Knelson gravity concentrator will recover 40.3% of the gold. The tailings from the Knelson concentrator were fed to a Knelson continuous variable discharge concentrator (CVD) from which concentrates with a mass yield of approximately 11% were subjected to a cyanide leach, which resulted in an additional 25% of the gold to be recovered. Although this process, in aggregate, generates a lower recovery of the gold (65%) compared to other processing alternatives, this configuration requires the least capital investment, being some 80% cheaper than the alternative maximum recovery design plan, and having the lowest operating costs. Tailings with the unrecovered gold will be stockpiled as an asset for later re-treatment.

About the Project

The Barani East Gold Deposit occurs on the Desert Gold's Farabantourou Permit located in Western Mali. The permit falls on the Senegal-Mali Fault Zone ("SMFZ"), 40km south of Sadiola Mine and 50km north of the Loulou-Gounkoto mine complex (Fig. 1). Both these mines are on the SMFZ.

Barani East is the first of 6 prospects with proven gold mineralization expected to be developed by Desert Gold on the permit. The project has been drilled to a depth of 120m with mineralization open to depth in the southern part of the deposit (Fig. 2).

To view Figures 1 and 2 please click on this link

The Resource

The company has focused drilling on the Barani East prospect and has completed a maiden mineral resource estimate, which indicates a total of 108,100 oz gold in the indicated and inferred categories with average grades of 2.50 g/t gold at a cut-off value of 1.0 g/t gold. (Table 1). This resource is currently defined to a maximum depth of 120 m below surface over a strike length of 400m. The deposit is tabular, mineralisation varying in thickness from 4.5m to 15m, and dipping to the east between 45deg and 60deg. The gold mineralisation is associated with quartz hematite rocks and kaolinite veins within siltstone and shale.

Farabantourou Strategy

Desert Gold's Farabantourou permit strategy is to develop the other 5 known gold prospects to a mineral resource definition stage similar to what has been achieved at Barani East. Funding for drilling on the other 5 prospects will be provided out of mining revenue from a low cost opencast mining operation on Barani East. A feasibility study is being concluded to define the CAPEX and related operational cost associated with a potential mining operation to extract the resource as defined from surface. High grade Au intersections of 9.99g/t over 4m and 8.60g/t over 3.5m at 120m vertical depth show potential for developing an underground resource at Barani East following the exploitation of the open pit resource.

About Desert Gold

Desert Gold Ventures Inc. is an advanced exploration and development company which holds mining assets in Mali and Rwanda.

For further information concerning Desert Gold Ventures Inc. and the TransAfrika material properties, please refer to Desert Gold's SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com or visit our website at www.desertgold.ca

This announcement has been reviewed by Mr. Mark Austin, Senior Partner of Applied Geology & Mining Pty Ltd, who has more than 30 years of relevant experience in the field of activity concerned. He is a fellow of the Geological Society of South Africa ('GSSA') and is registered as a Professional Natural Scientist with the South African Council for Natural Scientific Professions (No. 400235/06) and he has consented to the inclusion of the material in the form and context in which it appears.

This news release has been prepared on behalf of the board of directors of Desert Gold, which accepts full responsibility for its contents.

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Desert Gold Ventures Inc. Jared W Scharf CFO M: (416) 662-3971 jared.scharf@desertgold.ca

*The Wall Street Journal news department was not involved in the creation of this content. 

APT Makes Artisanal Mining Work

"Appropriate Process Technologies (APT) is assisting the 15 million artisanal and small scale (ASM) gold miners around the world with the development of a gold production mining unit system that avoids the use of mercury, reducing costs along with environmental impact". 

Small-scale miners extract between 10-15% of the global gold supply chain but make up over 90% of the labour force in gold mining worldwide, with over 100 million people dependent on ASM.

APT acknowledges that although it is a global force in numbers, the sector has struggled with gathering funds to use sufficient production systems, scrounging with sluices and hand panning dishes.

It says the key is to provide the artisanals with an efficient package that it “ready to being producing right out of the box”, leading to speedy repayment of the investment and continued viability.

The end product, being elemental gold, has until now been produced using mercury to separate primary gravity concentrates, resulting in environmental damage and driving up supply costs. 

APT have developed and manufactured an alternative system which comprises the GoldKacha concentrator allied to an efficient upgrader called a GoldKonka and finally a small smelting furnace. 

No mercury is necessary at all. 

One Mining Family Unit (MFU) in South Africa using the APT GoldKacha system and working a 1 grams per tonne gold yield resource can recover 20 grams per day, or up to 500 grams per month.

APT's GoldKacha Plant at work in the field

The GoldKacha will process between one and three tonnes an hour without the use of mercury and is profitable at APT has managed to reduce the price of the GoldKacha to sponsor ASM FMUs and assist in financing purchases. 

It is also inviting trade and non-government organisation enquiries, and has tailored special pricing for volume purchase. South Africa-based APT provides modular plant systems including wash plants, hard rock plants, concentrators, cyanidation and upgrade modules as well as testwork.

Its focus on reducing risks and increasing productivity has led to a rise in sales in the last three months of 2013, according to chief executive officer Kevin Peacocke. “This is absolutely against global trend,” he wrote in the January 2014 edition of APT magazine, “and one very interesting statistic to emerge is that conversion of enquiries to actual sales is by far the highest in the smaller sector, and this is increasing dramatically. “This sector is where the risks are higher, the pre-qualification of resource more difficult, but perhaps this is being outweighed by the lower capital required.

I have another theory to add – this is where the highest grade, and the highest potential for success exists. “This is where APT comes through with a package to reduce the risks and increase that potential. By keeping entry capital levels low, the risk, or rather the exposure is diminished. In keeping the operating costs way down, the profitability is increased,” he continued.

“What is special, if not unique to the APT product range is that we have endeavoured and achieved low capital and operating cost right across the range, including the small entry level where most of the high grade opportunities exist.

”In August 2013 the company introduced its B Series recovery equipment module, which provides simple and efficient RG Scrubber processing plants for gold recovery in alluvial plays, to assist in start-up mining programs.

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ASM Artisanal Small-Scale Mining Comes of age - new technology for Mining Family Units

"Fifteen million artisanal and small scale (ASM) gold miners exist in the world today with a further 100 million people who are dependent on ASM". Small-scale miners extract between 10-15% of the global gold supply chain, yet they make up over 90% of the labour force in gold mining worldwide.

For endless ages this sector has struggled as they have not had the ready finance to the necessary and sufficient artisanal mining equipment systems to reach viability. Even where some level of production has been achieved, it is often at the expense of efficiency and the environment.

Turning this sector into a well oiled mechanism that produces gold efficiently and cleanly is indeed possible.

The key is in providing the artisanals with an efficient, fully comprehensive package that is ready to begin producing right out of the box. Repayment of the investment, and continued viability can then progress smoothly with the necessary input from the artisanals being what they are good at; finding the feed and providing their good work. Note the reference to a system. The end product must be elemental gold which can then be sold and hitherto mercury has been used to produce this from the primary gravity concentrates. If mercury is to be avoided, then an alternative system must be offered to replace it. APT have developed and manufactured such a system, which comprises of the robust and simple GoldKacha concentrator allied to an efficient upgrader called a GoldKonka and finally a small smelting furnace. No mercury is necessary at all.

One hardworking, responsible Mining Family Unit (MFU) using the APT GoldKacha system and working a 1g/tonne gold yield resource can recover 20 grams per day, or up to 500 grams per month.

From humid Central American forests to hard baked North African desert plains and steaming Asian jungles there is a cry of triumph in the air.. Viva GoldKacha ! The all new Mk4 GoldKacha is making a stir in entry level mining circles worldwide and there has been great praise of using this plant to advance artisanal mining equipment. The newly streamlined and ergonomic mineral recovery system is easy to operate and highly efficient on recovery of elluvial and alluvial gold. No special skills are necessary. Family Mining Units are already pooling resources to buy GoldKacha systems. With the gold price set to firm in the near future, ASM sector miners are seeing an opportunity to cash in and make a good deal more than they have done in the past. The GoldKacha will process between one and three tonnes an hour without the use of mercury and is profitable at as less than 1g/t Au.

Age old rudimentary devices such as sluices and had panning dishes are not cutting the cake, they are simply too inefficient and are nearly always combined with the use of mercury. Thinking ASM sector MFU miners have now got the answer but not the tools. APT has managed to reduce the price of the GoldKacha significantly so sponsoring ASM family units is entirely feasible, and artisanal mining equipment has gone ahead full force. APT are inviting trade and NGO organisation enquiries. We have tailored special pricing for volume purchase and are implementing supply kit packages to make distribution and availability even easier.

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Company Focuses on Expanding PGM Recovery Modules

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Modular mineral processing plant manufacturer Appropriate Process Technologies (APT) CEO Kevin Peacocke says the company has increased its focus on designing and incorporating modular platinum-group metal- (PGM-) specific gravity recovery systems, which can be used to retreat tailing and to process primary ores, and has now included these PGM recovery modules to their range. 

“Our first entry into the platinum industry is the in-house ISO 9001-compliant testwork facility that we are operating. The facility is being used to examine and assess several methods of platinum recovery from tailings for a large Zimbabwe-based client and to investigate the gravity recovery of platinum for a local platinum miner,” says Peacocke.

This PGM recovery project started in May and is in the process development stage; it considers alternative methods of platinum recovery using APT technology and is not compelled to use conventional recovery methods.

“What makes this PGM recovery development and testing process unique is that the ore dictates the process that will eventually be chosen and designed,” says Peacocke.

APT has two products that it uses for the PGM recovery – a Knelson semicontinuous batch concentrator, which targets element metals, such as liberated platinum and other PGMs; and a Knelson continuous variable discharge (CVD) concentrator, which targets free element platinum, sulphides and semi-liberated sulphides.

The batch concentrator operates at an elevated gravitational force, which is between 60 times and 200 times the gravitational force on earth.

It also features a patented fully fluidised cone, which enables recovery from the top to the bottom of the cone, as opposed to only part of the cone surface.

This product derives its name from the capability the product has of taking itself offline and automatically setting the concentrate aside – as a batch – at a specific time. The product comes online again to repeat the process, with a new batch of ore or concentrate.

Meanwhile, the CVD concentrator also works at an elevated gravitational force of between 60 times and 100 times the gravitational force on earth. The product features rings at the top of the cone, with valves at the back of the rings. These valves open periodically, catching the concentrate.

The CVD is unique as the valves have five variable para- meters that can be set, which enables the user to choose the type of concentrate to be yielded.

The benefit of using gravity recovery in both instances is that the concentrate being put into the recovery products can be much more coarse than the 75 microns typically employed in flotation. For example, the concentrate can even be as coarse as 1 mm in size. The gravity processors also consume less than 0.5 kWh for each ton of concentrate being processed and require no chemicals, which ensures that the products are environment friendly.

Peacocke notes that APT’s two PGM gravity-processing products can be installed as an adjunct to existing processes. They can also be used to complement and improve on the sulphide flotation systems already prevalent in the market.

“What we aim to do is to install our gravity-recovery PGM products in phases, initially to complement existing systems, but to get to the point where we may propose the installation of complete gravity- recovery plants,” he notes.

With a presence on four continents and in 20 countries, APT’s long-term goal is to become even more globally represented and, through this representation, serve the high-end and entry levels of the market.

APT aims to offer survival techniques to entry-level miners during tough market conditions, while also providing immediate solutions for high-end miners that they can apply when capital is available and when expansion is possible.

Meanwhile, within the next 12 months, APT will consider expanding its assembly facility, in Kya Sands, Johannesburg, as business continues to grow, which is driven by increasing demand for its products and services in Africa.

Unearth Your Potential

Mining Decisions Article featuring APT

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Appropriate Process Technologies (APT) is a leading supplier of small-to-medium scale mineral processing plants that help customers mine without large-scale investment. With a growing global agency network, APT’s mineral recovery technology is garnering worldwide attention with numerous installations in Africa, South America and Asia. The company’s vision is to fully maximize its client’s mining operations using novel, cost-effective technologies. Whether you own a junior or mid-tier mine, APT can provide processing solutions that yield substantial initial return on investment.

​Economic and Legislative Relevance

In these capitally-challenged times, it makes sense for junior and mid-tier mining companies to commence production in a modest, easily fund-able way. Even projects with abundant resources and great long-term potential can start production early in the development cycle. Early production not only generates valuable development capital, but demonstrates project viability along the way. More importantly is the consequent commitment shown to investors, host governments and regulatory bodies.

Shortening the Development Cycle

The conventional mining project development cycle is well understood and essential when implementing a large project from greenfields. The cycle is based on substantiating reserves and catering to all life-of-mine scenarios. It must be comprehensive in scope and take into account various ore-types. The APT cycle is far shorter and is mostly aimed at the early stages of mining, when the objective is accelerated production while the rest of the conventional cycle continues in the background.

​Ready-Available Solutions​

APT plants are already engineered and available in various configurations to allow for the treatment of surface rubble and the friable oxide horizon. The plants are supplied as a fully-comprehensive package, including everything necessary to start production. As a result, on-site installation times are extremely short – normally days – with commissioning and training accomplished within the same exercise. With extremely low-energy consumption, APT plants can be powered by generators supplied as part of the package. This makes each plant a self-contained unit, wholly independent of the national grid.

Modular Addition Creates Numerous Plant Configurations

The plants are designed around the RG series of autogenous scrubbers that not only disintegrate clays and saprolites, but break up soft friable rock such as schist. Impact crushing modules can be added to cater to competent hard rocks, which the scrubber rejects. This solution can also be used to move the project into the transition zone. Options are available, from a 10 tph capacity (for initial exploration) to 20 tph, 80 tph and 250 tph.

Highest Quality, Efficiency and Availability

The world-renowned range of FLSmidth Knelson concentrators and other high-quality components are incorporated into APT plants to ensure the highest levels of efficiency and reliability. Projects are often located in difficult terrain where backup facilities and logistical constraints require self-reliance and standalone capabilities. The packages include a fully comprehensive spares and tools inventory. Maintenance requirements are straight forward and neatly detailed in the documentation supplied with each processing solution.

Continuity Through To Full Scale

The company endorses the capability and expertise of FLSmidth to engineer and supply mineral processing plants, even on a large scale. Projects initiated with APT can transition seamlessly through to the subsequent growth phases with FLSmidth, using the APT plant to generate valuable pilot information towards the full-scale objective. The differentiating factor is that the scale of some of APT’s pilot offerings are large enough to give substantial financial returns during the exploration phase. This reduces the financial constraints and investor reliance, which most pilot-level schemes experience when moving from exploration to full-scale production.

Crossing Environmental and Economic Landscapes

APT’s processing plants are environmentally-friendly using only water and electricity to extract minerals by creating artificial gravitational/centrifugal forces (gravity recovery). No mercury or other chemicals are used and high recoveries are possible without them. Some clients have demonstrated, through mineral testing, that gravity recovery holds the largest return on investment of any processing unit operation. Even if only 60% of a resource is gravity recoverable, this fraction may be obtained with only 5–10% of the total project mineral processing investment allocation. This ensures that operations occur within the environmental parameters and demonstrate compliance, while earning substantial returns during the most capital-hungry phase of a mine development cycle.

Mineral Processing Plant & A Seatbelt Are Similar? Here's Why!

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Mineral processing plant solutions and seatbelts appear to be entirely different. In 1950, just under 40 000 people were killed in traffic accidents in a single year. This very high death toll caused an ingenious man – Robert McNamara – to find a solution. He adopted the seat belt, widely used in aeroplane transportation at the time, for the motorcar. This led to an overnight drop in the number of traffic casualties. However, many people would not use the new technology. The resistance to wearing a seat belt was so high that even 15 years later, seat belt users represented a meagre 11% of all drivers. Why was this? Many people thought that wearing a seat belt was a sign that the passenger did not trust the driver’s skills to operate the car. The bottom line is that human behaviour is hard to change. Although the number of people using seat belts has steadily climbed over the years to around 80% today, the positive change took so long to implement that many unnecessary lives were lost. McNamara was a revolutionary, a visionary and more importantly, he appropriated well-known technology to a novel industry. He identified the variable that needed improvement and made it his personal mission to do so.

One of the biggest variables requiring improvement in the modular mineral processing plant engineer and supply and mining industry is time. All of us know that time translates directly into money and hence is of the utmost importance. Some miners seem happy to settle for either age-old, but well understood, techniques which are generally inefficient and/or time wasting from a tonnage throughput point of view. Other miners are happy to spend vast sums of money on more sophisticated machinery that then have manufacturing lead times of up to a year and an installation or commissioning time of around 3 months. APT took a long, hard look at the conventional processes and implemented many improvements and process alterations. This led to attaining mineral processing plant manufacturing and delivery lead times that competitors could only dream of. Most full mineral processing plant solutions (1.5, 3, 6, 20, 80 tonnes per hour) have manufacturing lead times of between 8 and 16 weeks. The installation and commissioning times are blindingly fast as well – in the region of 2 to 7 days. Hence, we have coined the phrase: “From bush to production in days!”

Another area for improvement is the processing of hard rock material. This time the variable which concerns most hard rock miners is that of energy requirements. Ball mills and jaw crushers are widely known to use the most energy in a given mineral processing circuit. Hence, the comminution portion of the process becomes not only a large capital investment, but also a large running cost concern. One of the latest APT developments to address these issues are the new modular processing plants for hard rock crushing & concentration. The ICRD dual impact crusher minerals processing plant are  coupled with either Knelson or GoldKacha concentrators. They are currently offering better recoveries on traditional stamp and ball mill site trials. The impact mechanism splits the rocks, releasing more gold particles for much less input energy. The costs hence also decrease proportionately. This newly developed plant can hence make many old sites economically feasible again.

Washing plants in the form of trommels and sluice-boxes have also been around for a very long time. Although well understood, these modular processing plants usually have an Achilles’ heel when it comes to fine gold. The APT washing plants have become very popular since they are better suited for fine gold recovery and are far more robust. An APT alluvial plant generally comprises an RG scrubber (which is more efficient than a trommel due to its patented design), a Knelson concentrator and the ICRD crushing module, if precious material exists in the oversize. There is currently an RG800 (80tph plant) available in the APT warehouse for rapid deployment (under 6 weeks) and three RG200 plants are being shipped to Central Africa, Southern Africa and Asia imminently.

In conclusion, there will always be the tried and tested “adequate” method of doing anything. Adequate for Robert McNamara was simply not good enough and his distaste of the high traffic death-toll led him to seek out a novel, simple but life-saving solution in the form of the car seat belt. Similarly, we all have witnessed many miners “die” along the way – whether financially or due to tough environmental legislation surrounding dated techniques. APT have hence also sought novel and simple solutions in order to keep the dreams of small and medium scale miners alive. This ultimately empowers all miners with a roadmap to eventually enter the territories of the massive-scale mining conglomerates. Our hope is that it doesn’t take over 50 years for 80% of the industry to join the mineral processing plant revolution. Instead of resisting the change, be a part of it.