MINE OF THE MONTH – SKORPION
TAGLINE
The desert Skorpion
Situated in southern Namibia, the Skorpion Zinc operation is part of Anglo American’s
base metals portfolio and is now operating at full capacity
S
KORPION Zinc is located 85 km northeast
of Oranjemund and 25 km north of the
town of Rosh Pinah in southern Namibia,
and stands out from other zinc operations
for two main reasons.
First, it exploits zinc carbonate and silicate
minerals from an oxide deposit, not a zinc sulphide.
Secondly, it produces high grade finished zinc metal
for sale instead of concentrate, using an innovative
solvent extraction electrowinning (SX-EW) metal-
lurgical process.
The operation consists of an open-pit mine,
comminution, leach, purification SX-EW plants, plus a
melting and casting section. Commercial production
started in May 2003. The zinc ingots are exported
through the port of Luderitz to Asian, European and
North American markets in about equal proportions.
The production results for the six months to June
2006 saw the mine operating at its full capacity of
12,500 t of SHG zinc per month. However, this was
followed by a setback in August 2006, when an
impurity excursion caused a severe disruption in
the electrowinning plant and a temporary drop in
production.
Aerial vie w of Sko rpi on com plex
11-12MM0702.indd 11
GEOLOGY
The deposit is situated in the southernmost part of
the Namib desert. Weakly metamorphosed clastic
sediments and limestone host the orebody, which is
covered by a 20 m layer of windblown sand, boulders
and calcrete. The deposit is part of the Skorpion
belt – a series of zinc-lead and copper-barytes
mineralisation, hosted in volcano-sedimentary rocks
of the pan-African Gariep complex. The Skorpion
zinc deposit itself represents a rifting phase and
associated subaqueous, mixed siliciclastic-carbonate
sedimentation.
The ore-body is unusual in the zinc industry as
it is an oxide deposit formed from the weather-
ing of primary zinc sulphides. The zinc occurs in
silicate and carbonate minerals such
as smithsonite (zinc carbonate),
hemimorphite (hydrous zinc silicate “The Skorpion
hydroxide) and hydrozincite (zinc
carbonate hydroxide).
zinc deposit
itself represents
OWNERSHIP AND
DEVELOPMENT a rifting phase
The deposit was originally discovered
in the 1970s by Erongo Min-
and associated
ing & Exploration (an Anglo subaqueous,
American subsidiary) but was
not mined at that time due to
mixed siliciclastic-
the metallurgical complexities carbonate
associated with the unconven-
tional silicate/carbonate ores. sedimentation”
The orebody itself was also
considered too small to be
economic in the market at the time.
The UK’s Reunion Mining then entered the
picture, forming an agreement with Anglo
American under which it could earn a 60%
interest in the deposit for conducting further
drilling, geological work and producing
Skorpion is the southern
Namib desert
a bankable feasibility study to develop a mine
by September 2000. The study was completed in
conjunction with Bateman Engineering by the end of
1998 and the metallurgical problems solved through
an innovative hydrometallurgical testing and SX-EW
process designed by Spain’s Tecnicas Reunidas and
Union Miniere of Belgium.
In 1999, Anglo then purchased the entire
shareholding of Reunion Mining to obtain 100%
ownership of the project. Following additional drill-
ing and bulk sampling for a pilot plant, the decision
to proceed was made in September 2000, approving
the project at a capital cost of US$454 million. Two
new companies were formed – Skorpion Mining Co
to run the mine and Namzinc (Pty) Ltd to operate the
refinery.
Construction commenced
in January 2001, with the main
EPCM contract awarded to a
joint venture between Bateman
Engineering and SNC Lavalin.
Anglo commenced with full
commissioning in early 2003
and the first metal was produced
on May 2, 2003.
EQUIPMENT AND MINING
The mine now regularly runs at
outputs greater than the design
capacity of 12,500 t of zinc per
month. The refinery is fed with
approximately 130,000 t of ore
per month from the open pit
(typically from a total tonnage mined of 800,000 t of
rock, including limestone. The mine itself is now 1
km long and 800 m wide at the extremities.
Mining equipment at Skorpion is dominated by
Caterpillar models. The fleet includes two excavators
Continued on page 12
February 2007 Mining Magazine 11
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 MINE OF THE MONTH – SKORPION
Continued from page 11
– a 180 t Caterpillar 5130B face shovel and an 80 t
375B backhoe. These load a fleet of five 777D mine
trucks. The 80 t backhoe is used mainly for selective
mining purposes. Stockpile management and
refinery feed is accomplished using a Caterpillar 992
and a Komatsu WA800 front end loader. The main
blast hole drilling rig is an Ingersoll-Rand DM45 SP.
Additional surface equipment includes two 38,000 l
Caterpillar 769D water tankers, two Caterpillar 824G
wheel dozers, a 14H motor grader and a 966F tyre
handler.
The ore is mined in 2.5 m or 5 m benches, depend-
ing on the ore variability in the area. Mined ore is
stockpiled according to zinc content, with low-grade
classified as 4% to 9%, medium-grade from 9% to
13%, and above 13% high-grade.
A major issue with the ore is the fact that it is
inter-fingered with limestone in what is a very
complex body meaning that selective mining is
always necessary to maintain grade control. As the
process is an acid-leach process, it is essential to
avoid as far as possible acid-consuming limestone
getting to the plant. Although the SX/EW process has
very stringent feed specifications, it does offer three
main advantages. There is no ore roasting involved,
nor the problem of disposing of excess sulphuric
acid that is a by-product of sulphide-ore processing.
Additionally, the major impurity is silica instead of
iron so a second hot leach after the first neutral leach
is not needed.
The current mine life only extends to around 2016.
A further but as yet undefined sulphide zinc deposit
exists below the oxide ore-body but its position may
be such that it could have to be mined using under-
ground methods – the economic viability of this has
yet to be fully assessed.
PRIMARY PROCESSING
There are two input streams from the mine to the
mill – zinc ore and limestone. Ore and limestone
are fed into separate crusher plants from a series
of stockpiles. After being crushed to about 12 and
View of the acid plant, which produces waste
heat used as steam in the refinery circuits
12 Mining Magazine February 2007
11-12MM0702.indd 12
10 mm, respectively, the ore is
fed into a stacker reclaimer unit
for blending purposes and the
limestone into a silo for buffer
storage. From there the streams
both feed forward into separate
ball mills. The milled slurries are
then thickened for feeding into
the leach and neutralisation
circuits.
The zinc oxide minerals are
not concentrated by flotation as
is typical for sulphide ores. The
absence of sulphides offers an
advantage in that no sulphur
or sulphuric acid disposal is
required. The ore is leached
directly in dilute sulphuric acid
to produce zinc sulphate solution. It is not possible
to directly win zinc from the sulphate solution due to
the high chlorine and fluorine levels and other impu-
rities contained in the Skorpion ore. These impurities
cause anode and cathode corrosion and cathode
stripping problems.
The neutralisation thickener overflow solution
containing the zinc is fed to the solvent extraction
plant. A copper cementation circuit receives a por-
tion of the pregnant liquor and contained copper
impurities are removed through the addition of zinc
dust.
The solvent extraction circuit, within design
limits, provides a buffer against such impurities
and through the organic phase effectively prevents
impurity carry-over into the pure
electrolyte solution. The use of
solvent extraction for the refining
of zinc provides a viable method for
the overall treatment of zinc oxides
alternative to the conventional roast-
leach-electrowinning (RLE) circuits.
The residue from the refinery
process, being a relatively dry filter
cake, is sent by conveyor belt to the
Skorpion 99.995%
purity zinc ingots
tailings dump some 3 km away.
An effluent treatment plant receives plant
spillages and precipitates any metals to produce a
solution for re-use in the plant.
The sulphuric acid plant is a sulphur burning plant,
producing two types of acid – industrial and chemi-
cally pure. The waste heat generated from the acid
plant is used to produce steam and keep the refinery
circuits operating at design temperature.
ELECTROWINNING AND CASTING
Loaded electrolyte, the pure acidic zinc solution
from SX, is fed to a modern cell house. A reverse
osmosis plant provides demineralised water to avoid
impurities from the raw water supply to the sensitive
circuits.
During electrowinning, electricity is used to plate
zinc out of the loaded electrolyte solution and onto
solid cathodes. The zinc sheets produced are of
special high-grade quality (99.995% pure zinc). These
zinc cathode sheets are stripped out and then fed
into melting furnaces. From here 25 kg ingots are
cast for sale to the international markets. The zinc
products are transported by truck to Luderitz where
they are stored before shipment.
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