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The Casposo Gold-Silver Project Process Selection and

Design
D Connelly1 and K Nilsson2
1. MAusIMM(CP), Director/Principal Consulting Engineer, Mineral Engineering Technical
Services Pty Ltd (METS), PO Box 3211, Perth WA 6832.
Email: damian.connelly@mets.net.au
2. Executive Director Operations, Troy Resources NL, 44 Ord Street, West Perth WA.

ABSTRACT
Silver and gold bearing ore from the Troy Resources NL Casposo Gold-Silver Project,
located within the San Juan Province of Argentina contains a complex mix of gold, silver,
electrum and silver sulphides in the ore. Casposo is a typical low sulphidation epithermal
style goldsilver deposit where mineralisation is hosted within rhyolite andesite flows and
breccias. Veins are typically banded quartzchalcedony colloform - crustiform banded with
quartz - carbonate infill. Mineralisation is associated with an assemblage consisting of
quartz, chalcedony, adularia, calcite, illite, sericite and trace sulphides. Gold and silver occur
as electrum, native silver, sulfosalts and silver sulphides. This paper presents a case study
that describes the process selection, development and engineering of a tailored process
plant for the recovery of gold and silver from this ore.
The original feasibility study, modelling, metallurgical testwork and engineering studies are
outlined. The final flowsheet was based on minimising capital cost, operability, recovery and
minimising technical risk.
The process flowsheet uses the traditional Merrill Crowe route because of the high silver to
gold ratio in the feed and achieves maximum gold and silver recovery while providing a
common facility for future ore body treatment.

INTRODUCTION
The Casposo Gold-Silver Project is Troy Resources NL third mine in South America (Fig 1).
The plant is designed to treat a minimum of 400,000 tpa of ore. The current mine plan
envisages production peaking at over 110,000 of gold equivalent in any single year.

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Fig 1- Casposo Gold-Silver Project Location

Like many resource projects, the Casposo Gold-Silver Project was prohibited by high
capital costs. The financial model developed by the previous owners was based on
the assumption of building a completely new processing plant. A major challenge in
order to make the project a reality was to develop an innovative approach to the
project to reduce the capital expenditure (CAPEX) so as to improve the projects
fundamental economics.
The results of the comminution testwork were used to provide an assessment of the
suitability of an existing second-hand crushing and grinding circuit for the application.
Simulation software (JKSimMet) was used to model the comminution circuit
providing a high level of confidence. Mineral Engineering Technical Services Pty Ltd
(METS) evaluated and sourced suitable second-hand equipment from multiple
locations for the rest of the plant. A three-dimensional computer model of the plant
was created using SolidWorks to allow proper layout of the plant and to provide a

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basis for generating general arrangement drawings for on-site engineering personnel
(Fig 2).

Fig 2- 3-D plant model

GEOLOGY
The San Juan province straddles 3 major north-south trending ranges, the Cordillera
Principal, Cordillera Frontal and Precordillera, as well as part of the Sierras
Pampean range. The Casposo Gold-Silver Project is located on the eastern border
of the Cordillera Frontal range, separated from the Precordillera by the RodeCalingasta-Upsallata Valley.
The Cordillera Frontal range is underlain by marine sediments (shale, sandstone and
conglomerates) of the Carboniferous Cerro Aqua Negra Formation. These
sedimentary materials are overlain by a thick intrusive and volcanic sequence
assigned to the Permian-Triassic Choiyoi group. Basal andesitic volcanic flows, tuffs
and breccias are the main sub-surface unit in the Casposo Property and are overlain
by rhyolite breccias, rhyolite-dacite flows and dacitic ignimbrite flows.

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Mineralisation at the project occurs along a 7 km long northwest- southeast regional

structural corridor, with the main Kamila vein system forming a sigmoidal set 500 m
long near the centre. The Mercado vein system is the north-westerly continuation of
Kamila, separated by an eastwest fault.
The mineralisation identified at the Kamila and Mercado as well as other prospects
within the Casposo Gold-Silver Project are examples of low-sulphidation epithermal
gold and silver deposits.
Mineralisation characteristically comprises pyrite, electrum, gold, silver, and
argentite. Other minerals can include chalcopyrite, sphalerite, galena, tetrahedrite,
and silver sulphosalt and/or selenide minerals.
The goldsilver mineralisation at the Kamila deposit is structurally controlled and
occurs in crustiform- colloform quartz veins and stockworks in both andesites and
rhyolites. The Kamila Deposit consists of the following features:

Main Corridor NW-SE Structure > 200 metres long with two parallel
Veins Sets Dipping 65o-55o SW (B Vein & Inca Veins),

Sigmoidal Structures N-S Dipping 70o-60 W (Aztec Vein),

Ore Shoots: Variable length ~50 200 metres Lenticular Bodies; and

Variable width from 1 to 15 metres.

Vein alteration is characterised by strong to pervasive silicification. Banded quartz

calcite veins with lattice bladed textures are common in the andesites. Interpretations
of the drill core show that mineralization is vertically zoned.
Mineralisation within the Mercado vein system contains moderately higher base
metal values, as well as increased amounts of iron and arsenic sulphides, in
comparison to the Kamila deposit.

FEASIBILITY STUDY
A Feasibility Study (FS) for the Casposo Gold-Silver Project was commissioned by
the previous owners in 2005 and completed by the Peruvian offices of EPCM
services consultancy in 2007. Some of the key findings are summarised in this
section.

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The 2007 Feasibility Study was based upon the proposed mining of two deposits
Kamila and Mercado. The Kamila deposit is larger and would be mined first. It was to
be mined by open pit methods and the deeper portion by underground mining
methods (2007).
Total Indicated Resources at the two deposits are as currently quoted and updated
on the Troy Resources NL website (www.troyres.com.au).
The plant and facilities were designed for an average milling rate of 1000 t/d (365000
t/a). Projected overall gold and silver recoveries were 93.7% and 80.6% respectively.
Over a mine life of five years, average annual production was estimated at 50,478 oz
of gold and 1.1Moz of silver per year, over a mine life of five years.
The process flowsheet was designed to use conventional primary jaw and secondary
cone crushing, ball milling, gravity concentration for coarse gold and silver, cyanide
leach, counter current decantation and washing and dewatering of tails by belt
filtration. Gold and silver would be recovered by standard Merrill Crowe precipitation
and smelted to produce dor bars. Tailings solids are washed and rinsed on a belt
filter to remove cyanide and then filtered tailings trucked to a lined tailings storage
facility.
Major infrastructure was required to develop the project including site roads, diesel
power generation plant, fuel storage, water supply, contractor areas and
administration facilities.
In summary CAPEX plant costs were US$44.2M as at 31 December 2010. Financial
analysis of the project suggested it was more sensitive to changes in metal price and
grade than either capital or operating costs.

METALLURGICAL TESTWORK
Several exploration and drilling campaigns have been undertaken at Casposo since
1998 in order to establish a resource estimate and map the deposit.
Thorough, accurate testwork is vital to producing a viable economic project and a
process which will not provide unwanted surprises once production is underway. A
variety of metallurgical testwork has been undertaken on Casposo ore over the last
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10 or so years (METS, 2009a and METS, 2010a). A brief summary of this work is
presented here.

Communition
Typical comminution testwork was completed to establish Crushing Work Index,
Bond Work Indices, Abrasion index and semi-autogenous grinding (SAG) mill
comminution parameters on composites of typical ore. These typical figures were
used to evaluate crusher power requirements, milling power requirements, indicative
liner wear rates and SAG mill breakage parameters respectively. Generally, the
Casposo ore was very hard and very abrasive. Tests including unconfined
compressive strength (UCS) and point load strength (PLS) tests were also
undertaken to identify the strength of the ore. The PLS test is a simpler version of the
UCS but both results are used to determine the rock strength. The results of the two
tests were similar and indicate the ore is very strong.

Gravity Testwork
Several gravity tests were undertaken in various testwork programmes. The Master
Composite sample responded well to gravity separation in May 2006. A gold yield of
33% was achieved. A further study later that year showed similar responses with
other samples yielding recoveries from 26% to 34%. The latter study showed
increased recoveries were exhibited by increased gold grades. The result indicates
the ore contains free milling gold.

Flotation
Flotation test on the Master Composite concentrate was conducted at two grind
sizes of P80 168 and 106 m. The results showed that improved recoveries were
achieved with finer grind. A recovery of 72% Au was achieved at P80 168 m. The
highest recovery was performed at P80 106 m, yielding 80% Au. The results
achieved are regarded as being low against industry values. Gravity / flotation
testwork conducted in September 2005 showed similar results. Improved recoveries
were achieved with finer grind of the primary feed. Overall recoveries using the
gravity / flotation regime yielded 86.2% Au at P80 106 m and 73.3% Au at P80 150
m.

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Head Assay
A head assay performed in 2010 gave gold and silver grades of 8.9 and 157 g/t
respectively. These were in agreement with previous analyses. The high ratio of
silver to gold in the ore indicated that a Merrill Crowe process option be considered.

Leach Testwork
A range of leach testwork performed on the samples showed the leach kinetics of
the gold are significantly faster than the leaching kinetics of the silver. This is likely
due to the presence of significant quantities of silver sulphide minerals. The impact
of this is that a longer residence time is required in order to attain acceptable silver
recoveries. A longer residence time requires larger equipment volumes and therefore
higher capital cost.
Other key results included:

Good recoveries were achieved using oxygen / air.

High cyanide concentration improved the leach kinetics of silver

significantly, although it did not alter that of the gold.

No benefit in recoveries with zinc addition. Zinc addition caused

increased reagent consumption as zinc is a cyanide-consuming
species.

High levels of iron in solution occurred.

Finer grinding can improve recoveries.

The high levels of iron in solution incurred a negative impact on

reagent consumption. The addition of a gravity circuit within the
process can mitigate this problem.

Several tests were carried out to assess the effect of lead nitrate on the silver
leaching kinetics. The lead nitrate did not significantly improve the leaching kinetics
of the silver as expected.
Gravity plus cyanide leaching was chosen as the preferred route as it gave the
highest recoveries and least variable results.

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Settling and Filtration

Thickening testwork on the Mercado and Kamila ore samples yielded poor solution
clarity.
Filtration tests were conducted on the leach residue using both flocculant and guar
gum (filtration aid). The aim of these tests was to determine the impact of each on
the filtration rates. Flocculant and guar added individually both reduce the cake
formation time thereby improving the filtration rate. However the rate improved
further when the flocculant and guar gum are added together.

Zinc Dust Cementation (Merrill Crowe Process)

Some operating data is available in the literature including reagent addition rates and
solution quality requirements. However some key process parameters such as the
influence of zinc dust particle size on the reaction kinetics are not well understood.
Further tests were conducted looking at different zinc dust particle sizes. Finer zinc
dust accelerates the reaction kinetics. However if too fine a product was used it may
impact on the filter press cycle times by blinding the filter press cloths.

Cyanide Destruction
The cyanide destruction process is important in maintaining a low level of cyanide in
the tailings as required by the environmental authorities.
The INCO SO2/Air cyanide destruction process was investigated. This uses a
combination of SO2 and O2, in the presence of soluble copper, to oxidise cyanide.
Both free cyanide (CN) and cyanide weakly complexed with metals such as copper,
zinc and nickel are oxidized to form cyanate ions (OCN-), which are less toxic by two
orders of magnitude. During the process, the ferro-cyanide complexes are removed
as insoluble ferro- cyanide salts. In addition, a small amount of thiocyanate (SCN) is
oxidised.
Continuous tests were conducted to determine what levels of free cyanide could be
achieved. The kinetics of the reaction depends on the oxidising conditions. In a
highly oxidising environment it is expected that the reactions would proceed quickly.
A key measure for the oxidising conditions is the ratio of the mass of SO2 to that of

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the weak-acid-dissociated CN. Testwork suggested this ratio should be maintained

above 3.

MINIMISING THE CAPITAL COST- SECOND HAND EQUIPMENT

The front end of the processing plant is based on second hand equipment acquired
previously from the McKinnons Gold Project in Cobar New South Wales which was
already owned by Troy Resources NL. Other second hand plant was also
incorporated wherever possible in order to achieve a financially viable project. The
second hand equipment also had the advantage of being immediately available. In
addition second hand filters and thickeners were purchased. Essentially, the use of
the second hand plant reduced the capital cost of the plant.

PROCESS MODELLING
An important stage in the development of the Casposo Gold-Silver Project was the
modelling and simulation of the McKinnons crushing and grinding plant that was to
be incorporated into the Casposo circuit.
The ore treated by the McKinnons plant was a medium-hard ore at a Bond ball mill
work index of14.4 kWh/t (METS 2009b). The McKinnons plant did not incorporate a
pebble crusher and there were concerns of the possibility of scat formation when
treating the harder Casposo ore (METS 2009b).
To investigate the means of overcoming the possible generation of large amounts of
scats and the resultant need for a pebble crusher at the Casposo Gold-Silver
Project, computer modelling of the circuit was conducted. This provided a means to
model a number of different scenarios which could be simulated before
implementation. Since JKSimMet software is widely regarded as the industry
standard for comminution simulation, it was employed to simulate the circuit. The
simulation was first initiated by first re-creating the McKinnons circuit and then
incorporating a pebble crusher into the circuit (METS 2009b).

FLOWSHEET
The processing plant will handle in excess of 400,000 tpa of ore (METS 2010b). At
8000 working hours per annum, this is equivalent to 50 tph (METS 2010b). The
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crushing section will operate at a higher rate than the rest of the plant to allow for
reduced operating hours and equipment maintenance. Thus the crushing plant is
designed to operate at a feedrate of up to 110 tph (METS 2010b).
Crushed ore entering the grinding circuit is fed into the SAG Mill Feed Chute
together with recycled grinding circuit water. It is added at a rate to maintain a mill
discharge density of up to 65% solids by weight. The
SAG mill operates with a ball charge up to 5% by volume. Mill scats report to the
scats crusher, and then crushed scats are fed back to the SAG mill feed belt.
Slurry from the SAG mill is fed to a cluster of six 250 mm hydrocyclones. The
majority of the cyclone underflow returns to the mill and cyclone overflow reports to
the leach feed thickener.
A split stream from the cyclone underflow, feeds the Gravity Circuit Screen. The
Gravity Circuit Screen oversize is combined with the gravity concentrator tailings and
returned to the SAG Mill Discharge Hopper.
The Gravity Concentrator processes the screen undersize. This concentrator retains
a gravity concentrate and produces a gravity tail. The gravity tail is returned to the
comminution circuit via the SAG Mill Discharge Hopper for further liberation. When
the gravity concentrate becomes sufficiently enriched, it is transferred to the
Intensive Leach Reactor (ILR) for leaching under intensive conditions.
The ILR is a specialist precious metals leach unit that uses alkaline cyanide solution
to leach gold and metallic silver from the high-grade gravity concentrates. The
concentrates are collected in the Concentrate Feed Tank. When sufficient
concentrate has been collected, the batch is transferred to a horizontal rotating drum
together with barren solution and hydrogen peroxide. Cyanide solution, caustic
solution and lead nitrate solution are added to the reactor. The pregnant solution is
then pumped to join other streams entering the Clarification area to remove any
solids and recover the gold and silver.
Thickened cyclone overflow slurry is pumped to the leach tanks. There are nine
agitated leach tanks linked in series. The total volume of the tanks is designed for a

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total of up to 80 hours of leach residence time depending on the leach throughput.

Due to the slow leaching kinetics of silver, an elevated cyanide concentration needs
to be maintained in each of the leach tanks. Cyanide solution is added to Leach
Tank 1 to achieve a nominal concentration of 2200 ppm and ensure a sufficient
cyanide concentration is maintained throughout the leach train.
The leach slurry feeds the first counter current decantation (CCD) thickener where
the solids settle to the underflow for pumping to the second CCD thickener. The final
underflow from the second CCD thickener is filtered using belt filters.
Two Tailings Belt Filters operate in parallel to produce a filter cake of <14% moisture
for tailings disposal at a nominal rate of 46 dt/h and a maximum rate of 55 dt/h.
The overflow from CCD Thickener 1 is pumped from the CCD Thickener Overflow
Tank into the Pre- Clarification Hopper. The Merrill Crowe process requires low
levels of solids, <1 ppm, to be effective. The solution from the CCD and filtration area
is clarified to achieve the target solids content. The Pre-Clarification Hopper removes
fine solids carried over from the thickeners by forming a bed of flocculant through
which the dirty solution is passed upwards. Following deaeration, the clean, oxygenfree pregnant solution is mixed with zinc dust, in the form of slurry, to recover the
gold and silver by cementation.
Lead nitrate is added to prevent passivation of the surface of the zinc powder and to
promote dendritic growth. This is important for good recovery of silver.
The gold and silver precipitate is recovered by filtration. The precipitate from the
Merrill Crowe process contains a mixture of gold, silver, un-reacted zinc and minor
amounts of mercury. The mercury removal retort initially removes surplus water and
ultimately brings the charge material up to the target treatment temperature of
750C. At this temperature any mercury in the precipitate is volatilised.
After the mercury has been captured and the retort has cooled the remaining
precipitate is removed from the retort and further cooled. The precipitate is emptied
into the Merrill Crowe Precipitate Feeder which transfers the material into the
Precipitate Leach Tank. Dilute nitric acid is pumped into the leach tank to dissolve
the silver and zinc. The gold remains as a solid residue.
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When the leaching reaction has stopped, the solution is filtered to recover the gold.
This is dried, then smelted and cast into ingots.
Sodium chloride is added to the filtrate to precipitate silver chloride and zinc chloride
remains in solution. The silver chloride precipitate is recovered by filtration. The
silver chloride is dried, smelted and cast into ingots.
A portion of the barren solution is passed through the cyanide destruction area. In
this area the levels of free and weak acid dissociable (WAD) cyanide ions are
reduced using the Inco air/SO2 process. The cyanide destruction process also
removes some of the soluble zinc with the remaining zinc removed by a sulphide
precipitation process. This is important for silver recovery.

Merrill Crowe
The key reasons for the selection of this process was that the silver to gold ratio in
the Casposo ore at about 24 to 1 meant it is not an economical process to use either
Carbon In Pulp (CIP) or Carbon In Leach (CIL) methods, due to the high amount of
carbon required for stripping (METS 2010b). The Merrill Crowe process was included
in the Casposo process flowsheet so as to not use carbon thus reducing the
stripping cost (METS 2010b).
Several other reasons are also influenced the decision to choose the Merrill Crowe
process.

Adsorption
The silver is present at a much higher grade than the gold. This silver will compete
for active sites on the carbon so may lead to gold losses. The adsorption capacity of
the total carbon inventory needs to be higher and more carbon will need to be moved
to keep the active sites available. Carbon activity and solution losses become more
critical with competition for the active sites so more carbon contact stages may be
required in order to achieve adsorption of the valuable materials.

Stripping
Silver is removed from carbon before gold and at a lower temperature. These
conditions are at odds with the gold elution so operations operate to maximise gold
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recovery from the carbon. The silver cyanide complex is less stable and breaks
down at the high temperature, forming metallic silver on the carbon. This has a
negative impact on carbon activity and hence increases solution gold losses.

Electrowinning
The electro-potential for gold is -0.63 volts and for silver it is -0.45 volts. This means
the silver will preferentially plate out of solution before gold thus slowing the
electrowinning process. In addition there is about 24 times more silver metal to
electrowin so more cell capacity is required.
Further, in this stage of the process, a review was undertaken to evaluate whether to
produce a combined gold-silver dor, or to separate the two metals. It was decided
that in order to minimise the refining charges, gold / silver separation should follow
Merrill Crowe precipitation as described above.

PROCESS CONTROL- DELTA V SYSTEM

The DeltaV control package was chosen as the process control system for the
project. The DeltaV distributed control system (DCS) provides an interface to the
programmable logic controller (PLC) for control and monitoring of the plant. Due to
the remoteness of the site, lack of skilled personnel and cost constraints, a number
of criteria were identified. These criteria included, but were not limited to the
systems:

Field-proven capability,

Capability of expansion without interrupting the process,

Ability to control the Merrill Crowe precious metals recovery, and

Ease of installation and operation.

The DeltaV system ticked all of these boxes and other plant operating
requirements.
Three particular issues were resolved by this choice:
1. Hardware
The modular design allowed for the purchase of the exact number of
I/O cards, carriers, workstations, controllers etc, and at the same time
gave the option to add or remove any of these components on-the-fly

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as the system might require, with no resultant downtime,

Regardless of I/O type, the setup prevents a mix-up of cards with

carriers. That means far less mistakes and field work,

The DeltaV has proven itself to be rugged and can be to mounted

almost anywhere including hazardous environments and extremes of
temperature, and

DeltaV can be maintained and operated via remote networks including

local area networks(LAN), wide area networks (WAN), dial-up,
microwave, or satellite communications. This proves important for
remote maintenance support in areas where technical support on the
ground is limited and hard to get.

2. The operator is aided with easy to use day-to-day operation tools such as:
DeltaV Operate Run,

Process History View, and

Diagnostics.

3. Techniques like drag-and-drop to simplify system modifications; Windows

looks alike and Plug-and- play technology for hardware configuration,
allows anyone to operate the system with only basic training.

LESSONS LEARNT
A major lesson from the successful completion of this project was the importance of
modelling to clarify and confirm the suitability of the second hand equipment. The
JKSimMet process modelling confirmed that the crushing and grinding plant would
be suitable, but that the scats crusher would be a necessary addition. Similarly, it
confirmed the importance of the metallurgical testwork in evaluating the comminution
indices and evaluating the variability of each of these.
Merrill Crowe is not as user friendly as CIP. Settling and clarity of overflow solutions
is paramount in successful solution processing and precipitating gold. The use of
tailings filtering is subject to variability in throughput due to different ore
characteristics i.e. on filtration rates, the effect of weathered ore (low) versus fresh
free quartz veins (high).
Water management is also critical particularly when one part of the process is taken
off line.
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The need to consider innovative and outside-the-box solutions is also highlighted

by the success of this project. Being able to halve the capital cost by utilising second
hand plant was imperative in getting this project to fruition. Selecting the Merrill
Crowe route over CIP or CIL processes was another. It is unclear how many projects
consider these options, and often it may not be available, but if it presents a real
possibility, it may make all the difference.

CONCLUSIONS
The Single Stage SAG is applicable to this ore and optimisation of the cyclones, the
grate and liner/lifter configuration and speed will achieve improved throughputs over
time.
Merrill Crowe is not as straight forward as CIP and there are a number of
disadvantages with Merrill Crowe but for high silver ores there is no other choice.
Managing the water balance presents challenges as do weathered ore when it
comes to settling and filtering. The importance of clean solutions for processing and
precipitation is also a challenge if the ore is not fresh. New technology such as resins
and EMEW cells will be looked at now that the project is operational and the
technical risks of such technology can be managed.
The concept of minimal engineering, (i.e. project management of a group of subconsultants to execute the project) did result in substantial savings in time and
money.
The use of whole tailings filtration was dictated by the seismicity and sensitive
environmental area the project was located in making a conventional tailings dam
impractical.
The project impact has been very positive for Troy Resources NL and the local
community. Exploration in the region has discovered new mineralisation and the
operation may continue production beyond the present resources.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors would like to thank Troy Resources NL for permission to publish this
paper and also all colleagues and engineers at various sites, METS staff and other
consultants for their contribution and the management of METS for their permission
and constructive criticism of various drafts of this paper.

REFERENCES
2007. Casposo Project Technical Report On Feasibility Study: unpublished report to
previous owners.
METS 2009a. Casposo Gold-Silver Project: Previous Metallurgical Testwork
Summary: unpublished report to Troy Resources NL.
METS 2009b. Casposo Milling Circuit Simulation Report: internal report to Troy
Resources NL.
METS 2010a. Casposo Gold-Silver Project: Metallurgical Testwork summary report:
internal report to Troy Resources NL.
METS 2010b. Casposo Gold-Silver Project: Process description: internal report to
Troy Resources NL.
www.troyres.com.au, 2011.

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