Newcrest’s Cadia concentrator operated from 1998 to 2012 with a traditional SABC grinding circuit treating Cadia open pit ore. The Cadia comminution circuit was well characterised through surveys and data that is available in the public domain, and became a benchmark standard for the industry and practitioners modelling large SAG mill based circuits.
In 2012, the HPGR-based crushing circuit was introduced in front of the SAG mill to increase throughput when treating the Cadia East ore that was derived from an underground block cave. This ore was expected to be more competent and have a coarser run-of-mine size distribution.
Numerous previous papers have described the design and commissioning of the Cadia HPGR-based circuit.
This paper describes the improvement in comminution energy consumption resulting from the introduction of the HPGR, including identifying the impact of process complexity and an increase in ancillary energy consumption for conveyors, screening, and crushing.
For more information, please contact Greg Lane.
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