Modern Mining July 2020

TREATMENT AND RECYCLING

Mining where the sun shines: unpacking Declining ore grades on most mines and other factors have con- tributed to a growing focus on the treatment of waste rock and tailings. This feature looks at the economic and other benefits of waste rock and tailings retreatment and explores the technologi- cal trends that enable metals and minerals extraction from rock dumps and tailings. By Mark Botha

D RDGOLD exited deep-level gold mining some years ago to leverage what was then a 25-year track record of success in recovering gold from surface tailings and sand dumps, says Niël Pretorius, the company’s CEO. “Since this move,” he says, “we’ve only been mining where the sun shines: tailings and sand retreatment have been our core business as we do not treat rock dumps.” He singles out as one of the major advantages of surface tailing and sand dump recovery the fact that it involves “considerably” less risk than underground mining, while rolling back the negative environ- mental legacy of mining by removing old, poorly managed or non-managed mine dumps from where they intrude on communities. He says DRDGOLD liberates hundreds of hect- ares of previously sterile land for redevelopment every year. Pan African Resources CEO Cobus Loots agrees that “the retreatment of waste rock, old processing plant footprints and tailings assists in environmen- tal rehabilitation” and that the cost of the related

DRDGOLD CEO Niël Pretorius.

Pan African Resources finds tailings and sand dumps easy to access, which contributes to lower safety risk.

Cobus Loots, CEO of Pan African Resources.

20  MODERN MINING  July 2020