Evaluation of mining and mineral processing methods’ impact on tantalite concentrate in Kenticha open pit mine, southern Ethiopia

ABSTRACT

Tantalite mineralization is located at Kenticha, southern Ethiopia and hosted by granitic pegmatite. The pegmatite has intruded the low-grade Neoproterozoic basement that forms part of the southern end of Arabian Nubian Shield. Ethiopian Mineral Development Share Company is conducting open pit mining and producing about 150 tons of tantalite concentrate annually. About 500 kg concentrate with ∼50% tantalite is produced a day from 1200 tons of feed using different mineral processing techniques. Impact of dilution and ore loss on the recovery of concentrate was studied by collecting five samples, 30 kg each from the mine site and tailings. The results suggest that the effect of dilution is about 5% and ore loss in tailings is 13%. Impact of ore loss is significant compared to dilution. Ore loss can be improved by (i) adjusting the shaking tables, (ii) adjusting ore-water ratio irrespective of grain size; and (iii) dry magnetic separation.

KEYWORDS:

• Open pit mine
• tantalite concentrate
• dilution
• ore processing
• Kenticha

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the workers at Ethiopian Mineral Development Share Company (EMDSC) for their kind logistical and material support in the site while conducting the research. We thank the two anonymous reviewers for their constructive suggestions and comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The study was partially supported by Mekelle University as part of postgraduate program.