Galaxy Resources Announce Mt Cattalin Processing Plant Update

Galaxy Resources Limited (ASX:GXY) announced an update on ongoing refurbishment and remediation work at the Mt Cattlin processing plant ahead of its 2016 restart.
As quoted in the press release:

New Fines Recovery Circuit A newly fabricated fines recovery circuit with a throughput capacity of up to 1.5 million tonnes per annum (Mtpa) will be the first part of the circuit to be energised, rectifying a historical anomaly in the overall flow sheet, specifically, the non‐recovery of any lithium from the fine fraction; defined as < 1mm.
The majority of this circuit is being fabricated off‐site and will be installed sequentially from March 2016 onwards. The new circuit will progressively recover spodumene concentrate (and tantalum as a by‐product) in the following steps:

• Reflux classification will be used to remove mica;
• A spiral and table circuit will recover the tantalum;
• Flotation will produce a fine spodumene concentrate grading 5.2‐5.5% Li2O (the coarse stream will be in the vicinity of 5.5‐5.8% Li2O, producing a blended product of minimum 5.5% Li2O); and
• A filter belt will be used to remove any excess moisture from the concentrate.

Crushing Circuit – upgrade options
The crushing circuit at Mt Cattlin was built with a nameplate capacity of 1Mtpa, although General Mining has based its projections to date off a more conservative throughput estimate of 800ktpa during the recommencement phase (see ASX release 12/10/2015).
General Mining has explored a number of ways to expand crushing capacity to match the throughput rates being built into the wet circuit, up to a potential target of 1.5Mtpa. Of the options explored, the future focus will include:

• Dry crushing to 12mm instead of 6mm allowing potential to increase throughput; and
• Expansion of crushing hoursfrom the historic 12 hours per day (based on existing noise limits) to 16+ hours per day via a number of noise attenuation initiatives.

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