Projects

Following the completion of a bankable feasibility study in March 2007, Boynton Investments contracted DRA Mineral Projects (Pty) Ltd to build a new $170 million concentrator for the Pilanesberg Platinum Mines Project located on the Western Limb of the Bushveld Igneous Complex adjacent to the Pilanesberg Dome. The operations of one open pit mine fed around 365 000 tpm of <300mm run of mine ore into the concentrator.

The plant treats two types of ore: UG2 at 65 000 tpm gets processed in the UG2 concentrator section; the Merensky (300 000 tpm), which itself consists of two types, contact reef and pothole reef, goes to the Merensky concentrator section. The UG2, after coarse crushing, goes to a two-stage mill/float circuit, followed by concentrate thickening, filtration and dispatch. The Merensky contact is crushed to -16mm, fed to a DMS plant to remove waste, and re-crushed. The pothole reef also undergoes two-stage crushing but bypasses the DMS. The Merensky crusher products are combined for two-stage milling/flotation and filtration. The UG2 and Merensky concentrates are dispatched separately. The tailings are pumped to a combined tailings dam.

During the first half of 2009 commissioning of the Pilanesberg Platinum Concentrators were completed. Three million LTIF hours were reached from inception to April 2009, with site personnel peaking at 1 950 at the beginning of the year. DRA was responsible for the process, civil, structural, mechanical, electrical and instrumentation design, construction and commissioning of the entire concentrator complex from the ROM receiving bins through to the tailings dam. During 2010 and 2011 DRA have been supporting the client with various optimisation to improve reliability and production.