WORLD PROSPECTS
embark on Albion Process testing, an exciting new
proven technology, to liberate gold and silver from
mines with refractory gold and silver
mineralisation. If testing proves successful, we
intend to fast-track funding the capital costs and
installation of the Albion Process recovery
equipment and technology during 2019.
Thereafter, we believe Campo Morado will
transition from predominantly a zinc producer,
into a primary precious metal producer with
strong base metal by-products which will certainly
and positively impact the mine’s profitability.”
Glencore Technology describes the
methodology as follows: “The Albion Process
technology consists of two key steps. The first
step is ultrafine grinding of the feed material
using Glencore Technology’s IsaMill™. The
second step is an oxidative leach of the finely
ground feed minerals at atmospheric pressure
to break down the sulphide matrix and liberate
gold and silver for recovery by conventional
means. Albion Process has real-world success in
delivering consistently high recoveries – up to
97% in refractory gold and over 99% in
chalcopyrite copper concentrates. It has much
lower capital cost than traditional leaching
plants like pressure oxidation (POx) plants and
because it operates at atmospheric pressure, it
completely avoids the myriad risks of POx
plants. It’s also dramatically less expensive to
operate, with a recent
study suggesting a third
lower in ongoing opex
costs. It’s also is incredibly
fast to install and
commission and very easy
to operate.”
Albion Process is a
combination of ultrafine
grinding and oxidative
leaching at atmospheric
pressure. The feed to the
Albion Process are base or
precious metal
concentrates. The
sulphides in the feed are oxidised and valuable
metals liberated, with the economic metals
recovered by conventional downstream
processing. It was developed in 1994 by
Glencore and is patented worldwide. The Albion
Process plants around the world are treating a
range of materials including a zinc sulphide
concentrate, refractory gold/silver concentrates
and chalcopyrite copper concentrates.
The Albion Process and Jameson Cell testing
with Glencore Technology is estimated to be
completed within 15 weeks of receipt of samples
in Brisbane, Australia. An additional two weeks
are estimated for the preparation and delivery of
a Class 5 Engineering Study providing the
ZYFRA buys VIST Group
inland and Russia based ZYFRA Group, the AI
and IIoT solutions developer for industry is
acquiring VIST Group, one of the industrial
leaders in development and implementation of
technologies for digital mining for $30 million.
Through acquisition of this asset the company is
planning to occupy a significant share of global
intelligent mining market.
“Via several acquisitions and organic business
growth, we are absolutelly on track to reach our
$30 million sales target for 2018 as part of our
wider strategy to become a leading integrated
digital industrial solutions vendor,” said Igor
Bogachev, ZYFRA Oy CEO. With the acquisition of
VIST Group, ZYFRA has broadened its
international footprint and will now also be
operating in Belarus, Mongolia and Morocco. It is
also planning to expand into Vietnam, Indonesia
and Chile in 2019 and in South Africa in 2020.
On top of international expansion, the
company says it is firing on all cylinders to
complete the “Intelligent mine” project – a
complex solution for unmanned surface mining
with application of self-driving vehicles. VIST
Group is planning to spend “a material share of
investment” provided by ZYFRA to accelerate its
R&D projects including self-driving vehicles,
automated surface mining machines (robots) and
appliances, broader IoT and AI based solutions
application as well as predictive analytics.
“There is a request from the market –
industrial giants are looking for the options to
improve the entire production chain efficiency,
F
6 International Mining | DECEMBER 2018
not its separate elements. I believe that
technological synergy of the two companies will
significantly boost commercial and innovation
potential of our solutions in respond to this
request,” noted Dmitry Vladimirov, VIST Group
CEO.
“With integration of VIST Group solutions into
our single digital platform for the industry will
allow us to achieve a synergistic effect and bring
additional value to our customers around the
globe from the metal and mining industry. For
example, we are now ready to realise a digital
mining and processing plant project by the
principle ‘Mine to Mill’ ,” said Pavel Rastopshin,
Managing Director of ZYFRA.
“Our view is that there’s a
tremendous opportunity for
disruption in Industrial IoT
and applied AI space,
although it is still a nascent
market to a larger extent –
said Ilia Kreisel, Investment
and IR Director at ZYFRA
Group. If you look at
Gartner’s latest Magic
Quadrant for IIoT platforms,
you can quickly arrive at the
conclusion that the market
still lacks a clear leader,
which leaves the doors wide
open for the up and coming
challengers like ourselves.”
The global market for
following information: a capital cost estimate for
the Albion Process Plant, accurate to a Class 5
(AACE); high level mechanical equipment list for
the Albion Process Plant; power demand
schedule for the Albion Process Plant; Albion
Process Plant Process Description; block flow
drawing for the Albion Process Plant; reagents
and consumables schedule for the Albion
Process Plant at the nominal throughput; an
operating cost estimate for the Albion Process
Plant at an accuracy of +20%. The Campo
Morado samples have been collected and
shipped to Australia.
www.telsonmining.com;
www.glencoretechnology.com
digital mining solutions is expected to reach $23
billion by 2024. It is expected that over 35% of
global mining companies will increase their
investments in digital solutions and AI
technology. After the acquisition deal with ZYFRA,
VIST Group “is gaining new resources to compete
with market players like Caterpillar, Hitachi,
Komatsu and Hexagon Mining.”
ZYFRA is applying cutting edge data science
combined with industrial expertise to provide
end-to-end solutions for optimising production
speed, quality, and costs for industries such as
machinery, metallurgy, oil and gas and mining.
The company, founded in November 2017,
currently operates in Finland, China, Russia,
Bulgaria and India.
www.zyfra.com; www.vistgroup.ru