Kansanshi Copper Oxide Ore Circuit Upgrade

Client: First Quantum Minerals, Ltd

Location: Northwest Province, Zambia

Business Segment: Urban Solutions

Industry: Mining & Metals

Services: Engineering and DesignProcurement

Map showing the location of Kansanshi Copper Oxide Ore Circuit Upgrade

Executive Summary

The Kansanshi concentrator sulfide circuit was expanded at a brownfield site to target a nominal throughput of 8 million tonnes per annum (tpa). We performed engineering at the copper-gold project for a mine 15 kilometers north of Solwezi.

Client's Challenge

First Quantum Minerals (FQM) is the 80% owner of the Kansanshi facility, where sulfide and oxide ores are treated separately. The sulfide circuit was built to target a 4-million-tpa sulfide throughput.

Following commissioning of the project in 2005, an upgrade was implemented to target an 8-million-tpa throughput. Fluor's project targeted another upgrade, to 12 million tpa. The mine's workforce numbers about 1,500 people.

Fluor's Solution

Our scope of work was to provide engineering and design services to support procurement and construction of plant equipment for treating the targeted 12 million tpa of sulfide ore.

The scope also included (for the oxide plant) two countercurrent decantation thickeners and a new gravity concentrator. Engineering services comprised civil, structural, architectural, mechanical and piping design.

Conclusion

Our efforts focused on operations with similar equipment at FQM's Kansanshi and Frontier facilities, using those at Frontier as a basis for design. This allowed a commonality of spares holding between the two operations.