Procurement and engineering opportunities may arise at the Mount Morgan mine, as Carbine Resources takes over the management of the lime dosing water treatment plant at the site, and looks to retrofit the plant with an ion exchange (IX) demonstration plant.
After significant water testing and plant operations assessments, Carbine Resources has entered into a long-term contract with the Queensland Department of Resources & Mines to manage the Mount Morgan mine’s existing operational lime dosing water treatment plant. The contract, which spans 10 years in total, sets out a remuneration of $2,500 per megalitre of treated water, up to 500 ML per annum, meaning potential avenues of up to $1.25 million per annum, before costs.
According to Carbine Resources, the water treatment plant can produce over 1500 ML of treated water per annum, with minor modifications. The company will therefore seek to satisfactorily complete the 500 ML per annum milestone, then seek to expand the scope of the contract to include the modifications and an increase in treated water volume.
The treated water will enter the Dee River, which runs alongside the Mount Morgan mine. According to Carbine Resources, it will seek to improve the volume and quality of the treated water that is discharged into the river and thus improve the overall river health downstream. By treating large volumes of water, Carbine Resources can also reduce the level of water within the existing open pit.
Carbine Resources says it is planning to submit a proposal to retrofit the existing water treatment plant with an IX demonstration plant at the front end.
Ion exchange plants involve pumping the contaminated mine water through a resin, which is formulated to target specific types of metals. The resin and the water exchange ions, trapping the copper with the resin. Once the exchange capacity of the resin is exhausted, acid or other chemical processes strip the removed metals from the resin for recovery.
The upgrade is expected to further improve the quality of the water discharged into the Dee River, since the treated water will have lower levels of heavy metals. It will also provide a demonstration scale facility to showcase the use of ion exchange technology for future tailings reprocessing activities at the mine site, and allow the company to extract up to 300 t of copper from the Mount Morgan pit water per annum, giving it an additional cash source flow.