The GPM Gold Project is located in Armenia, and consists of an open cutmine at Zod, near the Azerbaijan border, and a CIL processing plant atArarat near the Turkish border. Mining at Zod commenced in 1976, andfocused on near surface oxide ores, which overlay deeper refractory sulfides.Historical mining has now almost depleted the oxide ores, and the sulfidecontent of ore delivered to the processing plant at Ararat is increasing. Goldand silver recoveries through the Ararat plant are declining.GeoProMining, the owners of the project, are expanding the Araratfacility to deal with the increasing sulfide content in the ore. GeoProMiningare refurbishing an existing concentrator to recover a sulfide concentratefrom the ore, and are constructing an Albion Process plant to oxidize therefractory concentrate. Xstrata Technology (XT) is providing the AlbionProcess plant as a technology package.Run of mine ore will be ground and subjected to flotation to produceapproximately 100,000 tonnes per annum of an 18% w/w sulfide concentrateand 900,000 tonnes per annum of flotation tailings. The Albion Processplant will oxidize the sulfide concentrate, to liberate gold and silver forrecovery. The oxidized concentrate and flotation tailings will berecombined and processed through the existing CIL plant to recover over90% of the gold and 85% of the silver as dore from run of mine ore.Construction of the Albion Process plant is nearing completion andplant commissioning will begin in March/April, 2014.
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