Molybdenum

lets_tally asked:


I am an investor in Amerigo Resources, a company that has a plant in Chile to extract more copper and also molybdenum from old and fresh mine tailings (from Coldeco’s El Teniente mine). They have a consultant studying laundering the waste product by a pipeline from the extraction (which involves crushing) process back into a swampy area (the Colihues) where the old tailings are stored. Apparently, the redeposited material would have the quartz removed and be more granular (crushed).

Is there a net environmental problem or benefit from this kind of recycling from and back into the Colihues tailings dam? What are the consequences of replacing the old (and some new) tailings in the Colihues with the original tailings pulled out of there with the processed tailings in more granular form after pulling out more copper and also moly?

The Chilean government is very vigilant these days about anything from mining that might pollute the environment.
I’m not sure if the main mining company, Coldeco, is using the leach-solvent extraction-electrowinning process or, SX/EW Process for their primary extraction. Amerigo Resources does a second pass on old mine tailings, which were perhaps created in the Colihues tailings dam over 20 years ago. I know that they grind those old tailings in a low-tech kind of operation.

They want to pull the old tailings out of the Colihues tailings dam, process them to extract further copper (and molybdenum), and then put what is left from their operation back into the same Colihues tailings dam. But, Coldeco (owned by the Chilean government) won’t allow this kind of recycling yet, until they are sure that a pollution problem is not created.

Do you know why laundering the waste product from Amerigo’s operations would result in pollution, meaning, I think, pollution of the Colihues tailings dam, to which most of the materials would be returned after processing?

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