Sandfire says it has successfully commissioned a Larox permanent filter press at its Motheo copper mine in Botswana, as part of a planned debottlenecking process.

On May 25, Sandfire announced that it had successfully produced first copper concentrate at Mothe, with construction of the mine nearing completion and equipment commissioning activities over 92% complete for the initial 3.2 Mt/y processing capacity.

During the initial ramp-up of the Motheo process plant in the September quarter of 2023, it was identified that the OEM filter press installed during construction was unable to achieve design parameters, the company explained in a July 22 release. An interim solution using mobile filter units was implemented, enabling the operation to safely ramp up the production of copper concentrate at planned rates and specifications.

In parallel, an $8 million capital investment secured the procurement, installation and commissioning of a Larox filter press from Metso to support the long-term operational requirements of Motheo.

Sandfire Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, Brendan Harris, said: “Commissioning of the new filter press concludes a challenging period for the Motheo operations team, and I congratulate them on their hard work and ingenuity. The new filter press removes significant complexity at the ‘back end’ of our processing circuit and provides the capacity needed to test higher rates of production as we debottleneck the operation.”