Gold Recovery Improvement from Refractory Ores

The treatment of Mercur's refractory ores has been well published; however, the processing of the remaining semi-refractory or oxide ores has not been discussed. Although ore control at Mercur is efficient, refractory vestiges are left with the mill-feed, oxide ores. Also, these ores as mined are not necessarily completely oxidized at Mercur and should be termed semi-refractory ores. This paper will discuss those steps taken at Mercur to enhance the recovery of gold from partially oxidized ores at Mercur. The Mercur mill is a conventional SAG/ball mill grinding circuit feeding a GIL plant. The circuit has been well published and will not be further reviewed.