Cobre Las Cruces Copper Project - Spain

The project scope carried out by SNC-Lavalin consisted of a 72,000 tpa copper ore processing plant and appurtenant infrastructure. The processing plant has ore crushing in a three stage closed circuit, wet grinding and thickening, atmospheric leaching in agitated tanks, solvent extraction and electrowinning.

Ancillary areas included an oxygen plant, process tailings facility, sulphuric acid, kerosene, lime and other reagents storage, electrical supply and distribution, water supply and storage, effluent treatment, and administration and operations buildings.
 

Jabal Sayid Copper Project - Saudi Arabia

The Jabal Sayid Copper Project is located 150km south-east of Medina, 330 km north-east of Jeddah and about 350km by road from the Red Sea port of Yanbu Al Bahr in Saudi Arabia.

The Project intends to mine 3.4Mtpa of ore and process this to liberate 60,000 tpa of copper concentrate that will be transported by road to Yanbu for sale to international customers. Ore will be mined using underground techniques, then trucked and fed into a primary crushing circuit. Crushed ore will be passed through grinding and flotation circuits before thickening, filtering for concentrate and tailings disposal.

SNC-Lavalin conducted the feasibility study which was followed by the award of the project delivery via an EPCM contract. The project will produce 60,000 tpa of copper concentrate liberated from 3.4 Mtpa of ore.
 

Kylylahti Copper Project - Finland

The feasibility study is to examine the viability of a bulk underground mining operation and associated processing facilities to produce the major products of a copper-gold concentrate and cobalt-nickel hydroxide. Minor copper and zinc products will also be produced.

The facilities include a copper concentrator with a tailing management facility which includes a paste plant, separate roasting facilities and a separate leach plant.

Climatic and environmental conditions in Finland provided SNC-Lavalin to demonstrate some of our core skills; the ability to work in harsh climatic conditions and embrace diverse cultures in our projects.
 

Nifty Sulphide Project - Australia

Straits Resources Limited commissioned SNC-Lavalin Australia to perform a complete feasibility study into the expansion of the existing Nifty Copper Operation. The existing operation produces 25,000t/a copper metal from an open cut oxide deposit musing heap leach SX/EW recovery of metal. The expansion study considered an underground mine development to access the sulphide deposit with associated copper concentrator and infrastructure to support a 1Mt/a mining rate and the production of copper in concentrate.

The scope of the feasibility study covered mining, geology, processing, transport, port facilities, infrastructure, environmental, marketing and financial analysis. The Feasibility Study considered a number of project development alternatives related to mining methods, production rates, ore processing schemes and infrastructure needs. The site process plant consisted of crushing, grinding, flotation, thickening and filtration operations. The port facilities included concrete handling and loading facilities.

Olympic Dam Expansion Project - Australia

SNC-Lavalin in joint venture was contracted by BHP Billiton to provide prefeasibility study services for the ore processing facilities of this large expansion project.

The prefeasibility study investigated the expansion of the Olympic Dam facility to increase annual production to the following targets:

• 40 Mtpa mined ore
• 500,000 tpa copper
• 15,000 tpa uranium oxide
• 500,000 oz gold per year, and
• 2,900,000 oz silver per year

The scope of the contract included provision of engineering services to provide the following main components:

• Establishment of a common platform of engineering standards and systems to be used across the project.
• A single go forward design of the ore processing facilities consisting of the following five main areas: concentrator, hydrometallurgical facility, smelter, refinery and ore processing infrastructure and utilities.
• Consolidated OPEX and CAPEX estimates for the PFS.
• Applicable inputs to the PFS Report for the ore processing facilities.