Mindarie
http://www.murrayzircon.com.au
zircon, ilmenite, rutile, leucoxene, , camp, DiDo
Phone:
Address:
Level 6, 50 Grenfell St, Adelaide, SA, 5000
State: Level 6, 50 Grenfell St, Adelaide, SA, 5000
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The Mindarie Mineral Sands Project is located in the Mallee Region of South Australia, 150 kilometres east of Adelaide. The project contains individual mining leases on which it undertakes the mining of heavy mineral sands strandlines (the high water mark of ancient seabeds).
Mindarie Project Owned and Operated by Murray Zircon Pty Ltd
The Mindarie mineral sands project is owned and operated by Murray Zircon Pty Ltd, a joint venture private company formed in June, 2011, between Guangdong Orient Zirconic Ind Sci and Tech Co Limited (OZC) and Australian Zircon NL (AZC). The aim of the joint venture partners was to proceed with the development and recommencement of sand mining operations at Mindarie after it had ceased production in September, 2009, when its then owner, Australian Zircon Limited, entered into administration.Mindarie Mineral Sands are Exported to China
The heavy mineral sands concentrate produced at the Mindarie sand mining operation is exported to China where it undergoes further processing to separate it into various heavy minerals such as rutile, ilmenite and zircon. The redevelopment of the Mindarie operation involved the rehabilitation of previouskly mined out areas that had not been attended to since mining activity ceased there in 2009. It also required substantial refurbishment of the primary concentrator plant, a new mine slurry unit and the acquisition of new grid powered slurry booster skids. Extra electrical infrastructure was also installed. Murray Zircon Pty Ltd had to secure a new mining permit from the South Australian government before the construction of the new mine could proceed. The mining lease was soon granted and the company then fast tracked the whole operation into early production.Mindarie Mineral Sand Mine Uses dry Mining Methods
Heavy mineral sand is mined at Mindarie using dry mining methods. Tractors and landplanes are used to remove topsoil and subsoil before being stockpiled for later use in mine rehabilitation purposes. The overburden is removed with the use of scrapers. It is then either returned directly to a mined out area as part of rehabilitation, or stockpiled. Once the ore body is reached it is mined by means of dozers pushing it to temporary stockpiles near the mine slurry unit that is situated within the mine area. The dozer pushing automatically blends the ore before it is fed into the mine slurry unit hopper by a front end loader.The mine slurry unit operation screens out any oversized ore, it then introduces water to the screened ore to create a slurry which allows it to be pumped along pipelines to the wet concentrator plant. When the ore slurry reaches the Mindarie wet concentrator plant it is screened again, this time to remove small rocks before it is pumped through cyclones that remove any silt or clay particles. From here the ore is pumped over spiral classifiers where the heavy minerals are recovered. Once the heavy minerals have been removed the residue is pumped back to the mine as a tailings slurry. It is then treated with flocculent before being deposited at the bottom of the mined out area of the mine where it is left to dry and consolidate. When the tailings are dried out sufficiently the overburden, that was previously stockpiled, is placed over it to fill the void created by the mining operation. Finally the subsoil and topsoil is placed over the lot and planting of original vegetation is introduced.
