Ore Sorting Pilot Plant for Rössing Uranium Mine

BATEMAN has been awarded a contract to design, construct and commission a pilot plant at Rössing Mine in Namibia to separate run-of-mine (ROM) ore into ore and waste-grade fractions.

The objective is to remove up to 50 % of the current ROM ore prior to crushing, milling and further processing, greatly reducing the costly processing of waste-grade rock by the treatment.

A radiometric ore sorter from Ultra Sort, Australia, will be used to separate the ore fractions. It measures the volume and a dio activity of individual rocks passing through it, calculates the rock grade and ejects the low-grade pieces by means of blasts of compressed air. The process is not unlike the X-ray separation of diamonds, the difference being that the uranium ore sorter is designed to eject rocks up to 300 mm in size.

The project commenced at the end of 1999 and is scheduled for completion by October this year. he pilot plant is expected to operate for approximately one year and if the results are positive, a much bigger permanent plant of modular design consisting of a battery of nine ore sorters will be installed. The design of the pilot plant will allow it to be incorporated as a module of the eventual main plant.

Bateman’s previous involvement with Rössing dates back some 25 years when it designed and constructed the acid production plant at the mine. This was the first contract on which BATEMAN was awarded a completion bonus. BATEMAN returned to Rössing in 1985 to replace a eat exchanger and to fit an economiser to the SO2 (sulphur dioxide) converter to reduce catalyst consumption and to increase the acid plant throughput.

The acid production plant supplied by BATEMAN to
Rössing Mine in1974 and upgraded in 1985.

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