6,000 t/d Gold CIL Plant — Guinea

Background

This profile represents a typical large gold project in Guinea, one of West Africa’s most active gold regions. The deposit was a free-milling oxide-to-transitional ore at a moderate head grade, and the owner needed a high-throughput plant that could be built quickly and reach design recovery without a long ramp-up. The brief was for a complete 6,000 t/d concentrator delivered as a single contract, from ore testing through to a plant producing dore on site.

Solution

Xinhai began with bench and pilot testwork to confirm gold deportment, optimum grind size and reagent demand. The confirmed flowsheet paired early gravity recovery with carbon-in-leach cyanidation. Run-of-mine ore passes through three-stage crushing and closed-circuit grinding to roughly 75-80% passing 200 mesh, after which a gold centrifugal concentrator captures coarse free gold and reduces downstream reagent load. The bulk of the gold is recovered in a train of leaching agitation tanks running a CIL circuit, where leaching and carbon adsorption occur together to limit preg-robbing losses. Loaded carbon is treated in a gold elution and electrowinning system, with barren carbon regenerated and returned. Thickeners and filters recover process water and dewater tailings.

Because the scope was full EPC+M+O, Xinhai supplied the engineering, manufactured the main equipment in-house, coordinated civil works and installation, and supported commissioning and operator training on site. Single-source delivery kept the equipment, flowsheet and construction schedule aligned and reduced the interface risk that often slows multi-vendor projects of this size. At 6,000 t/d the leach was sized for adequate residence time at the design solids density, with the tank train and carbon transfer matched so adsorption keeps pace with leaching across the circuit.

Outcome

On a free-milling ore of this type, a gravity-plus-CIL circuit typically achieves around 90-94% gold recovery once the leach residence time and reagent regime are tuned to the orebody. The plant was built and commissioned to the agreed schedule, and the combination of early gravity recovery and CIL helped the operation approach design recovery during ramp-up. Figures here are representative ranges for this ore type rather than guarantees; actual results depend on head grade, grind and residence time.

For the full process logic behind this build, see the gold processing solution. To size a comparable plant to your deposit, contact us for an ore test.