The Buckreef gold undertaking is developed as an open pit mine, comprising a dormant gold mine and 4 prospects positioned within the north-central area of Tanzania.
In accordance with a three way partnership settlement signed in October 2011, Tanzanian Gold (previously Tanzanian Royalty Exploration) holds a 55% curiosity within the Buckreef gold undertaking whereas the remaining 45% is owned by the Tanzanian State Mining Firm (Stamico).
The undertaking commenced business manufacturing in November 2022. The gold undertaking is anticipated to provide 822,000oz over its estimated mine lifetime of 16 years.
A brand new three million tonnes every year sulphide processing plant is being developed on the mine. It’s anticipated to provide 150,000oz to 175,000oz of gold yearly.
Moreover, a $6m enlargement so as to add a 3rd mill is ongoing on the mine. The third mill will improve the processing capability from the present 1,000 tonnes per day (tpd) to 2,000tpd and is anticipated to be commissioned within the second half of 2024.
A crushing circuit a part of the third mill was commissioned in April 2024.
Buckreef gold undertaking location
The Buckreef gold undertaking website is positioned 45km south-west of Geita district and instantly in the direction of the south of Victoria Lake Goldfields in north-central Tanzania.
It’s located 110km south-west of the town of Mwanza.
The undertaking could be accessed by ferry from Mwanza throughout Smith’s Sound and Lake Victoria by way of Busisi or Kamanga, and by way of a sealed street by way of Geita.
Alternatively, the positioning is accessible by way of a sealed street by way of Kahama and Shinyanga, adopted by a gravel street north to Bulyanhulu earlier than turning west to Nyarugusu.
Geology and mineralisation particulars
The Buckreef undertaking is positioned inside the Lake Victoria Greenstone belt in northern Tanzania, which includes a number of east-west trending, linear, Archaean greenstone belts.
The undertaking goals to develop 4 deposits: Buckreef, Jap Porphyry, Tembo, and Bingwa.
Gold mineralisation at Buckreef is linked with pyrite-silica-carbonate alteration, with the best grades current in intensely altered and fractured host rocks, usually accompanied by quartz veining.
Mineral reserves
The Buckreef gold mine was estimated to comprise 19.2 tonnes (t) of confirmed and possible reserves grading 1.54g/t of gold, as of Might 2020.
Mining methodology
The Buckreef gold mine is an open-pit mining operation involving standard drilling, blasting load and haul.
The undertaking targets high-grade oxide reserves at or close to the floor. Using vans and loaders delivers price advantages and good selectivity.
The mining fleet contains 17 40t vans and 4 backhoe excavators to haul waste and ore supplies by way of the lifetime of the mine.
Ore processing
The run-of-mine ore undergoes screening earlier than being crushed in a major jaw crusher, with the resultant materials collected in a bin and subsequently transported to the milling plant.
The crushed ore combines with the oversize particles from the mill and enters the multishaft mills by way of a two-way splitter chute on the feed conveyor.
The mills discharge immediately right into a Rotaspiral geared up with a 100µm sizing display.
The ultimate milling product is transferred to the gravity concentrators. The underflow from the Rotaspirals is channelled to the gravity feed tank, the place two Knelson concentrators, organized sequentially, additional refine the ore.
The following focus is then funnelled to a Deister concentrating desk, gathered, and packaged.
The tailings from the gravity focus stage are conveyed to a dewatering cyclone. The cyclone underflow is fed right into a pre-leach thickener for densification. Subsequently, the thickened underflow is pumped to the leaching carbon-in-leach (CIL) facility.
On the CIL facility, lime is added to the slurry in a pre-conditioning tank to regulate the pH to above ten earlier than it progresses into the primary of six CIL tanks.
The loaded carbon is then handled within the acid wash space to remove impurities.
The carbon undergoes a Zadra-type elution course of, the place gold is stripped utilizing a high-temperature and stress caustic soda/sodium cyanide resolution.
The stripped gold is then subjected to electrowinning, culminating within the manufacturing of the ultimate dore bars.
Infrastructure at Buckreef gold undertaking
The undertaking features a 110kV transformer substation, provincial roads, a Tanzania Telecom line and cellular phone protection by Vodacom, Airtel, Halotel and Tigo.
The infrastructure contains waste rock websites, a central ore milling and processing plant, tailings storage services, mine operation buildings, an ore stockpile, and workplace and housing areas with on-site lodging.
The undertaking website additionally has entry to a 1,000m gravel airstrip for emergency medical evacuation.
The prevailing infrastructure additionally features a defunct vertical shaft, open-pit and waste rock dump, borehole for home water sources, waterlines, pumps, inoperative heap leach pads, a ten tonnes per hour carbon-in column processing plant, a 200t tonnes per hour crusher unit with scrubbers, in addition to workplace and lodging buildings.
{The electrical} energy for the Buckreef mine website is equipped by Tanzania Electrical energy Provide Firm by way of a single transmission line.
Contractors concerned
Virimai Tasks, an engineering and undertaking administration providers supplier, was contracted to organize the pre-feasibility research for the undertaking.
MaSS Assets was chosen to organize an impartial optimised mine plan, in October 2016.
It printed the technical mining reserve estimate and financial feasibility research report in Might 2017, which was later reviewed by Virimai.
SGS Canada, a testing, inspection and certification firm, performed metallurgical testing on the first ore at its services in Ontario, Canada.
PricewaterhouseCoopers Company Finance, a brokerage firm, was chosen to assist safe financing for the Buckreef gold undertaking in Might 2020.