The large gold mine, owned by AK Altynalmas, treats over 2Mt/y of ore, and has purchased a M5000 IsaMill to be installed in its gold operation.

Paul Telford, general manager at Glencore Technology, said: “Our IsaMill is highly energy efficient, and miners all over the world need this type of technology to modernise their operations as orebodies become more complex. The grinding duty being performed at Pustynnoye is less than 20 microns, and the IsaMill is one of the few proven comminution technologies that can successfully achieve these sizes efficiently.

“This project will be the 14th mill we have in a gold pre-leaching grinding duty, and highlights the need for delivering high levels of liberation for good gold recovery, such as what we see in operations at Las Lagunas and Ararat gold operation, that use the IsaMill in their Albion Process circuits. Other sites, such as KCGM’s Gidji operation, enabled their roaster to be closed through the use of fine grinding achieved with an IsaMill in their flowsheet”.

IsaMills have recently been installed in other sites in Kazakhstan, in copper and molybdenum regrind duties, as well as being part of a base metal leaching project in Africa.