Glencore operates zinc concentrators at both Mount Isa and McArthur River. Both orebodies have a history of complexity and required the development of new technologies to maximise the value from these long life assets. The Mount Isa orebodies were plagued since operations started in 1931 with complex mineral textures making separation challenging and many areas uneconomic. Examples are given in Figure 1 with different grain sizes from the same orebody in different areas. The McArthur River deposit, located in the Northern Territory, was discovered by Mount Isa Mines geologists in 1955 (Logan, Murray and Williams 1990). The extremely fine grained nature of the ore was quickly recognised and the difficult separation of the minerals was soon obvious. The geographical, metallurgical and economic factors resulted in the orebody not being developed until the technologies for the mineral separation had been developed. The development of the IsaMill allowed for an economic mineral separation flowsheet to be developed and ore treatment commenced in May 1995 (Nihill, Stewart and Bowen 1998).
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机译:Glencore在伊萨和Mcarthur河山上操作锌集中器。奥尔巴德都有复杂性的历史,所以要求开发新技术,以最大化这些长寿资产的价值。 Mount Isa Orebodies自1931年始于1931年始于复杂的矿物纹理,使分离挑战,许多领域不经济。图1中给出了不同区域中的不同矿体的不同粒径。位于北方境内的Mcarthur河矿床是由1955年的伊萨矿山地质学家(Logan,Murray和Williams 1990)发现的。矿石的极其细粒度的性质很快被认识到矿物质难以分离很明显。地理,冶金和经济因素导致矿体未被开发,直至开发了矿物分离的技术。在1995年5月开始开发的经济矿物分离流程表的伊米尔允许的发展(Nihill,Stewart和Bowen 1998)。
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