CNMC’s Carbon-in-Leach Plant Starts Trial Operation


An new CIL facility at the Sokor mine in China will process 500 mt/d.
CNMC Goldmine Holdings Ltd. confirmed that its newly constructed carbon-in-leach (CIL) plant is in the process of conducting trial operation, marking a major milestone in its efforts to ramp up gold output after poor ore grades dented the company’s gold production for the last year.

The CIL facility, which kick-started initial trial production on November 6, will enable CNMC to extract and process at least 500 metric tons per day (mt/d) of higher-grade ore at its flagship Sokor gold field in Kelantan. Construction of the plant began in May and was completed within the budget of RM25 million ($3.8 million).

“We spent the last few months putting together this new plant with the goal of turning around the decline in production since the fourth quarter of 2016,” said Chris Lim, CNMC’s CEO. “CIL technology is widely proven to be effective in extracting gold from ground ore, with recovery rates of up to 95%. We believe output at the Sokor gold field will increase once the plant goes into commercial production.” CNMC has about 18,000 mt of ore stockpiled for processing at the new facility to prepare for a production ramp-up and in anticipation of the year-end monsoon season.

As featured in Womp 2017 Vol 12 - www.womp-int.com