Meeting Mali

ECOSERV meets the challenges of working at a Mali gold processing plant

ECOSERV director, Allan Jansen, recently returned from a source emission measurement campaign on a gold processing plant in Mali, West Africa, feeling satisfied that ECOSERV had met the demands of a complex campaign.

“It was challenging, exciting and a little tough,” says Allan. “The original scope was for five sources, utilizing three different methods, but shortly after ECOSERV’s arrival on site at Sadiola the scope was increased slightly after consultation with the site process specialists.”

The Sadiola contract was brought to ECOSERV by Airshed Planning Professionals, who required source emission measurement data for dispersion modeling purposes. But measuring the processing plant’s emissions was not a straightforward affair.

“The emission ports were not located strictly in accordance with the requirements of the USEPA methods and the plant was not entirely geared for source emission measurements,” says Allan. “I conducted some sampling in a basket, suspended from a crane!”

The major emission sources measured were 18 diesel generator sets, a general waste incinerator, a bag filter at the back end of an assaying laboratory containing banks of fusion and cupellation furnaces, a laboratory cyanide hood stack, a smelt-house electro-winning line ventilation stack, a smelt house furnace baghouse stack and carbon regeneration kiln stacks, both heating side and process side.

In terms of logistics and planning, Sadiola was a large undertaking. ECOSERV needed to transport all their equipment and solutions to Sadiola and bring everything back again safely. “After spending two weeks collecting samples, we didn’t want to lose them on the home stretch,” says Allan.

Allan was given accommodation in a little village along with employees of Semos, Sadiola’s managing company. “The village is inhabited mostly by expatriates from Canada, Australia, South Africa, Belgium and England. Some employees live there with their families so there is a local school and a clinic. It is a very small and closely knit social environment,” says Allan.

Sadiola was Allan’s first campaign at a gold processing facility and has given him an appetite for more. “It has given me exposure to technology which I have not worked too closely with before. I suspect there is great potential for source emission testing in the gold industry in South Africa and West Africa. Having the World Bank as a stakeholder in joint ventures in the mining and associated processing industries, means that environmental performance is measured in these instances.”