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Gold/Mining/Energy : Mining News of Note -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LoneClone who wrote (44533)	10/6/2009 12:37:41 PM
From: LoneClone	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 194504

Barrick's $3 billion Pueblo Viejo gold mine buys Finnish copper recovery plant Finland's Outotec has won a contract to supply a copper precipitation based metallurgical plan to Barrick and Goldcorp's big Pueblo Viejo gold mine development in the Dominican Republic. Author: Lawrence Williams Posted: Tuesday , 06 Oct 2009 LONDON - mineweb.com Finnish metallurgical specialist, Outotec, has made an agreement worth approximately €16 million with Pueblo Viejo Dominicana Corporation, owned jointly by Barrick Gold Corporation and Goldcorp Inc. The contract covers the supply of a copper recovery plant based on the Outotec Sulfide Precipitation Process to Pueblo Viejo's gold mine. The Pueblo Viejo project is located in the Dominican Republic, approximately 100 kilometres northwest of the capital city of Santo Domingo. Barrick acquired the Pueblo Viejo project through its acquisition of Placer Dome in 2006 and sold a 40% interest in the project to Goldcorp. In addition to an estimated 22 million ounces of gold, Pueblo Viejo has significant amounts of zinc (2.6 billion pounds), copper (358 million pounds) and silver (88 million ounces) contained within the gold reserves. The mine life is currently estimated to be at least 20 years, and Pueblo Viejo is expected to produce around 1 million ounces of gold a year at peak output, with cash costs put by Barrick at $275 to $300 per ounce during the first five years of full production. Initial production is anticipated in Q4 2011. Pueblo Viejo is advancing on schedule and within its pre-production capital budget of $2.7 billion. Post start-up, an additional $0.3 billion is expected to be necessary to complete the phased expansion to 24,000 tonnes per day. Outotec's scope of delivery includes engineering, proprietary and process equipment, instrumentation and automation, as well as supervisory services and spare parts. The plant is supplied as prefabricated skid-mounted units, minimizing the amount of site work and ensuring fast track implementation. The units will be pre-tested at the workshops to ensure safety of the operations. The new plant is scheduled to be commissioned at the end of 2011. The ore treated in the gold leaching process contains copper, which is removed as copper sulfide. Outotec has developed the Copper Sulfide Precipitation Process, which in collaboration with Barrick, will be applied in the Pueblo Viejo project. This application utilizes Outotec's proprietary OKTOP reactor technology and Paques THIOTEQ bioprocess as hydrogen sulfide source. "This contract is a significant breakthrough in combining Outotec's hydrometallurgical expertise and Paques' biotechnology in copper production. Our innovative OKTOP reactors developed in recent years have already been sold to Cobre Las Cruces and Talvivaara projects. Paques THIOTEQ is complementing our process and enabling us to offer larger process solutions to our customers", says Tapani Järvinen, CEO of Outotec.