Simberi Gold Project

Sedgman provided engineering, procurement and construction management (EPCM) services for the mineral processing plant, aerial ropeway and associated infrastructure for the Simberi Gold Project, Papua New Guinea.

Engineering commenced in April 2006 and culminated with the detailed engineering design review in the third quarter of 2006. Commissioning commenced in December 2007 with the first gold pour achieved in February 2008.

SCOPE OF WORKS

The plant consists of the following:

• Two Mt/a carbon-in-leach (CIL) gold plant fed from two main ore bodies
• A remote ore source, necessitating an aerial rope conveyor to transport the gold ore to the central processing facilities over mountainous terrain
• A 2.7 km long conveyor, with spans of up to 800m and traverses an area of deep gulley’s from the mine site to the process plant site on the coast, where haul roads would have been impractical to construct. 

OUTCOMES

In the first five months of operation, the Simberi gold plant processed approximately 416,000 tonnes of ore and produced 33,068 oz of gold at an average operating cash cost of just AUD $482/ oz. This compares well with the plant’s design processing capacity of approximately 2.2 Mt/a.