Weir Minerals secures £3m contract to supply major expansion project at Turkish gold mine.

Weir Minerals Europe is to supply a range of products worth more than £3.2m to support a major expansion project at one of Europe’s largest gold mines.

Weir Minerals Europe is to provide equipment for Anagold Madencilik’s Çöpler Gold Mine sulphide expansion project in Turkey. The scope of supply for pumps includes models from the renowned Geho® Heatbarrier range and the Warman® range, including MCRTM mill discharge pumps, AHTM pumps featuring WRT® impeller and throatbush combination, M, L and PC pumps, together with the AHF and the MF Froth handling designs. A total of 82 pumps will be supplied. The overall scope of supply includes five Enduron® heavy-duty dewatering screens and a Cavex® CVX TM 12-way cyclone cluster.

Weir Minerals Europe secured the supplier contracts from Amec Foster Wheeler, the engineering company appointed to manage the $744m expansion project, which is expected to extend the life of the Çöpler mine by more than 20 years.

Carola Schulz, Sales & Marketing Director at Weir Mineral Europe, said: “We have a long-standing relationship with Anagold and have been working with the company at Çöpler since the mine opened in 2011. Indeed, we already have several of our Warman® pumps installed for various applications around the mine site. Our engineering expertise together with the wide range of world class products and dedicated, experienced service teams combine to offer some of the best equipment solutions for this high profile project. Going forward, this winning combination will help future operations at Çöpler’s new, high-efficiency plant to be highly productive and profitable operating with equipment that delivers a lower cost of ownership.”

“Weir Minerals’ status as a large-scale engineering solutions provider means our products are used across the globe and have a proven track record in the mining industry.

“Our trusted technology and our products’ durability provide long and trouble-free service, reducing the total cost of ownership.”

Çöpler is an epithermal gold deposit located in central eastern Turkey, in the province of Erzincan, 340 miles from the capital city, Ankara. It is an open pit mine producing gold from oxide ore. Construction of the mine started in 2009 and gold production began in 2011. Turkey is Europe’s top gold producer and in 2015, Çöpler produced 204,665 ounces of gold.

The sulphur expansion project will enable the Çöpler facility to process 5,000 tonnes of sulphide ore a day. Mechanical completion of the project is due in the second quarter of 2018 and first gold production is expected in the third quarter of 2018.

John Ebbett, of Anagold, said: “Weir Minerals was able to bring together a range of different products and packages that addressed the key issues of longevity, capacity and efficiency of operations. Weir Minerals’ products have an excellent reputation for reliability, and it’s important that we are able to minimise downtime as we look to achieve high productivity levels when the new plant is commissioned, and for many years into the future.”