Clean TeQ Water says it has been awarded a design and construct contract by Broken Hill Operations, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Broken Hill Mines, for an ATA® Tailings Dewatering Plant at the Rasp Mine in Broken Hill, New South Wales, Australia.
The ATA Tailings Dewatering Plant forms part of Broken Hill Operations’ ramp-up of its 100% owned and operating Rasp Mine to its 750,000 t/y nameplate production rate, with practical completion of the dewatering plant targeted for the first half of 2027.
The contract covers the engineering, procurement, manufacture, supply and installation of a single-train ATA facility sized for 750,000 t/y dry solids throughput. Works are scheduled to commence immediately following contract execution, with practical completion targeted in the third quarter of FY27.
The ATA Tailings Dewatering Plant is a conventional mine tailings dewatering system enhanced by Clean TeQ Water’s proprietary ATA rapid dewatering technology. It is designed to produce a filter cake suitable for in-pit filtered tailings stacking without the additional capital and operating costs typically associated with pressure filtration.
The Rasp Mine is, Clean TeQ says, long-established as one of the largest silver, lead and zinc deposit in the world; and the new ATA Plant will support Broken Hill Mines’ transition away from the historical practice of higher operating cost ‘solar drying’ of tailings on site, which has previously limited processing throughput to 500,000 t/y. The ATA process has been extensively tested on Rasp Mine tailings through laboratory and pilot-scale programs, consistently producing high-quality filtered tailings and meeting the mine’s required target tailings moisture content.
Clean TeQ Water and Broken Hill Operations Pty Ltd are also finalising a long-term polymer supply agreement covering the supply of ATA reagents and licensing of ATA technology for the Rasp Mine.
Source: im-mining.com
