500 t/d Gold CIP Plant — Sudan

Background

This profile reflects a typical 500 t/d gold operation in Sudan, an established gold-producing market for Xinhai in northeast Africa. The ore was a clean, free-milling gold ore amenable to direct cyanidation, and the owner wanted a compact, quick-to-deploy plant with low operating cost rather than a large, complex circuit. Throughput and simplicity drove the design.

Solution

Bench testwork confirmed fast leach kinetics and good cyanide recovery with no significant preg-robbing, which pointed to a gravity-plus-CIP flowsheet. Crushing and closed-circuit grinding with a wet ball mill reduce the ore to roughly 75-80% passing 200 mesh. A gold centrifugal concentrator captures coarse free gold first, then the pulp is leached in agitation tanks before carbon adsorbs the gold in a separate CIP train. The packaged CIP gold processing plant bundles the tanks, carbon transfer and reagent system, which shortens installation. Loaded carbon is stripped and gold electrowon to dore on site.

Delivered as EPC+M+O, the scope ran from ore testing through in-house manufacturing, installation, commissioning and operator training. A packaged CIP layout suited the modest throughput, kept the plant footprint small and allowed faster on-site assembly in a remote location. The leach tanks were sized for complete dissolution ahead of a compact adsorption train, with inter-stage screens retaining carbon for counter-current transfer and lime dosing holding pulp pH in the optimum cyanidation band. Standardized, skid-mounted modules reduced field welding and shortened commissioning, which mattered given the distance from major supply routes.

Outcome

On a clean free-milling ore at this scale, a gravity-plus-CIP circuit typically returns around 90-94% gold recovery once dosing and residence time are tuned. Recovering coarse gold early reduced reagent consumption, supporting the owner’s low-cost target. These are representative ranges for the ore type, not guarantees; actual recovery depends on head grade, grind and leach conditions.

Operator training emphasized carbon handling and cyanide control, since on a compact circuit these are the levers that keep recovery steady. For the full process rationale see the gold processing solution, and for budgeting a smaller operation read our small-scale gold plant guide. To size a plant to your ore, contact us for an ore test.