Taborny mine located in the world class Gross Region
Taborny mine, along with Gross, Nordgold’s flagship mine and the Tokko project, is located in the world class Gross Region.
Taborny is first Nordgold asset in Gross Region acquired in 2007 and it has proven to be a successful platform for growth and exploration in the Region.
In 2020, Nordgold increased the processing capacity of Taborny from 5 million to 7.5 million tonnes of ore per year.
The mine supports almost 800 jobs.
LocationTaborny is located in the southwest of the Russian Federation’s Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) and accessible by an all-season road from the Ikabya station on the BAM railway (80 km away).
Taborny is a conventional open pit gold mine utilising a standard mining method consisting of drilling, blasting, loading, hauling, dumping of waste and stockpiling of ore.
As part of the equipment efficiency enhancement programme, all mining fleets at Taborny are equipped with a WENCO Automated Fleet Management System, which enables the continuous improvement of the equipment dispatching process, in turn increasing productivity and reducing idle-time costs.
Ore crushed using two mobile crushers operating in open circuit in parallel. The crushed ore is transported to the static leach pads using a series of overland conveyors, feeding onto mobile grasshopper conveyors and finally to a radial stacker. Direct dumped ore is delivered to the pads by the mine haul trucks.
Taborny utilises a simple, capex-light and low-cost heap-leach processing method, due to the favorable metallurgical properties of the highly oxidised low-grade ore.
Leach solution is applied using wobbler sprinklers during the warmer months and drip emitters, which are buried just under the surface of the heaps, in colder months. During winter, the barren solution is heated before being transferred to the pads.
The foundation of each pad consists of a compacted base over which is laid 0.3 m of medium grained sandy soil. This is overlaid with a 2 mm HDPE geomembrane, a 600 g/m2 geotextile and a geogrid. A 1.5 m drainage layer laid over this consists of a 0.8 m layer of 40-70 mm crushed rock, a 0.4 m layer of 20-60 mm crushed rock over which is laid another geogrid, and finally a 0.3 m layer of 5-20 mm crushed rock.
The pregnant solution is taken to a processing plant. There, gold is adsorbed from pregnant leach solution in carbon solution columns, followed by desorption, electro-winning and smelting to produce gold doré.
Taborny mine has an environmental management framework that is being aligned with ISO 14001 international standard for Environmental Management Systems.
Ongoing environmental monitoring includes:
- Analysis of ambient air quality at the border of sanitary protection zone and residential quarters of the rotation crew camp, around waste disposal sites.
- Control of emission sources (by estimate).
- Analysis of surface waters in Rudny, Temny and Teryaushiysa streams before and after possible impact of production activities.
- Analysis of wastewater at the discharge locations.
- Control of soils around the waste disposal sites and on neighbouring territories.
There are no specially protected natural territories or cultural heritage landmarks within the limits of licence sites.
Administratively, the Taborny mine is in the Tyanya National Nasleg within the Olekminsky District of Yakutia. The Tyanya National Nasleg is a territory traditionally inhabited by indigenous minorities. The only residential settlement in the Nasleg is Tyanya village, home to roughly 500 residents, 155 km north of the Taborny mine.
As with all its operations in the Gross Region, Nordgold engages with the local community within the framework of social and economic agreements; community needs and concerns are discussed, and then the actions to be taken are formalised by the resulting agreements. Nordgold meets with community leaders periodically to review agreements and community development projects.
Targeted financial assistance has been provided to the Olekminsky District for more than 10 years as part of Nordgold’s social and economic agreements with the local administration, the nomadic tribal community Tyanya, and Tyanya National Nasleg.
In 2013 — 2020, more than US$500,000 was transferred to the local communities under these agreements. Additionally, the Company provides focussed support to local events, festivals and celebrations.