The size of the heap leach pad is going to cause another revenue delay.
This shows a truck loading a heap leach pad. Buzz said approx 35 acres and that is HUGE!
Trucks deposit coarse ore on a heap leach pad, which has a series of pipes and hoses dispensing a diluted sulfuric acid solution to the ore. Copper is dissolved and flows to a pond at the bottom of the pad.
This is the leach pond that will be replaced with one of approx one acre in size.
This process can take several months.
The leached solution is pumped to the SX (Solvent Extraction) circuit, which looks like a series of agitation tanks or cells.
The concentrates from the flotation cells are sent to the smelter for processing to a copper plate. The copper plate is then dissolved in sulfuric acid and sent to the electrowinning cells for plating onto cathodes, along with the concentrated copper from the SX circuits. The copper leach solution typically consists of 40 gm of copper and 200 gm sulfuric acid per liter. Current densities on the electrowinning cells can be 300 amperes per square foot, or more.
