Abstract
The Sar Cheshmeh porphyry copper deposit located in southern central Iran, with the sulphide ore reserves of about 1.22 billion tons averaging 0.69% Cu and 0.027% Mo, ranks with the great copper deposits of the world. Minor amounts of gold, silver, and selenium are also present in the ore.
The current operation at Sar Cheshmeh includes open-pit mining, milling, smelting, and copper refinery, with a rated production of 158, 000t/y of cathode copper. Concentrator flowsheet consists of crushing, grinding, bulk flotation of copper sulphides and molybdenite, differential flotation of molybdenite, and dewatering circuits, capable of processing 43, 000t/d of about 1% Cu ore, and producing approximately 1, 300t/d of 30% copper concentrate containing 0.8-1.2 ppm Au and 30-40 ppm Ag, as well as a molybdenum concentrate of 55% Mo.
In this study a comprehensive sampling of the concentrator plant was carried out and over 130 samples of mill products were analyzed for 48 elements. The metallurgical balances of copper and gold during the sampling periods show that, in compare with 80% copper recovery, about 44% of the gold is recovered as the by-product into the copper concentrate, and the remaining is lost to the tailing.
In this manuscript the geology and current plant practice at Sar Cheshmeh are briefly described, and an assessment of metallurgical performance of the concentrator plant at various time intervals with special reference to the behavior of gold in the mill products are presented.
