At the recent MetPlant and World Gold conferences Glencore Technology along with Dr Duncan Turner of Core presented a paper on the success of the recently commissioned Zod Albion Process Plant in Armenia. The Albion Process is a new technology for the treatment of refractory concentrates, was developed at Core’s laboratories, and is now commercialised in 5 operations globally. The conference presentation is shown below, and summarises the recent performance of the Zod Albion Process plant. Highlights of this installation include:

• 98% gold recoveries achieved using the Albion Process, up from 20% using standard CIL leach
• Plant is performing better than Pilot Plant results
• Robust gold recovery >90%, even with highly variable feed tonnages (30-70 tph) and variable S grade (8-23%)
• Reaction temperature and gold recoveries remained consistent through Armenian winter and summer
• Simple operation – operators spend more time managing the float plant than the Albion Process plant
• Project completed within time and budget

Core has played a key role in the development of the Zod project, having managed the delivery of the BFS document and pilot plant programmes. We are very pleased to see the Albion Process at work in operations, exceeding expectations of this new technology.