Production Development of Olimpiadinskoe Gold Processing Plant through BIONORD® Technology Processing

Abstract

The first production shop in Russia of refractory gold ores biooxidation using chemoautotrophic microorganisms association was launched in 2001 at Olimpiada gold recovery plant. The shop was designed for treatment of 3 million tons of Olimpiada deposit “Vostochniy” pit primary sulphide ore per year. In 2007 the BIO-2 shop designed for treatment of 5 million tons of primary sulphide ore was launched. Total capacity of the two bio-processing unit is 8 million tons of sulphide ores per year. A more advanced concept of BIO-3 shop was developed based on industrial operation and performance analysis of BIO-1 and BIO-2. The concept was based on biooxidation process automatisation with displaying control and managing parameters of the process on the monitors in control room. This allows to keep main process parameters within the specified limits and maintain process in a stable high-performance state. Installation of the automatisation systems in BIO-1 and BIO-2 shops allowed increasing the throughput of all flotation concentrate treatment shops from 870 t/day to 1200-1300 t/day. This led to production of more than 26 tons of gold in 2016. Currently JSC “Polyus” is copyright holder of patented refractory gold sulphide ores concentrate treatment technology, patented microbial association carrying out the process, and the technology itself is protected by the trademark "BIONORD".