Modern Mining April 2019

MODULAR PLANTS

new heights

system has already been supplied to a client in Katanga in the DRC. Swarts – who holds a BEng degree and an MEng in Metallurgy – has enjoyed a long career in the mining industry. He started on the gold mines with Anglovaal, later moving to Nkomati Nickel, where he was involved with the development of the ground-breaking Activox technology which was planned for deployment at Tati Nickel in Botswana. In 2008 he joined Teal Exploration & Mining as General Manager Metallurgy, a position which saw him become heavily involved with the Otjikoto gold project in Namibia. Swarts later went into business on his own behalf, found- ing Skorpion Minerals Processing (SMP) which he later sold. He manages MET63 in conjunc- tion with Johan Marais, a mechanical engineer and project manager who previously worked for Denel, Transnet and DRA. MET63’s flagship project – the nickel sul- phate purification plant at Marikana – is designed to produce high-purity, battery grade

Above: Typical MET63 skid pre-assemblies.

Left: One of MET63’s advanced modular comminution plants.

regarded as uneconomic. We’re currently busy with studies for clients in both Zambia and the DRC and, in addition, we’re working on devel- oping a prototype plant. A number of large mining houses are evaluating the technology for their projects.” He adds that MET63 can also supply the SiMPLeR leaching technology, which is a mobile leaching solution combining leaching, solid-liquid separation and washing. It is suit- able for small projects (typically less than 50 tons per hour) treating high-grade ores. One

Technology developed by MET63 includes FLeXor, which represents a low capital, continuous coarse ore VAT leaching system.

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April 2019  MODERN MINING  31