Growing demand for representative sampling in West Africa

The growth and diversification of West Africa’s mining sector has led to a growing market for mineral samplers.

Sampling that complies with ISO standards and best practice as prescribed by the Theory of Sampling (TOS), confirms that a mine is supplying product that meets the end-customer’s contractual specifications.

For over two decades Multotec has been active in the West African market, with its samplers in use at over 30 sites in countries including Ghana, Liberia, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Mali and Guinea-Bissau. A number of commodity sectors use the equipment for both slurry and dry sampling applications, including gold, bauxite, iron-ore and heavy minerals.

The company also provides representative sampling training courses, explaining the practical aspects of implementing TOS.

The company states that the sampling protocol and “correctness” of equipment design is especially important for bulk minerals like bauxite. Its sampling plants have been in operation with a major West African producer for 17 years.

The importance of reproducible and accurate sampling (cumulatively termed representative sampling) at the interface between the mine and port and on the ship-loading conveyor to the client, in particular, is highlighted by the company.

Multotec supplies wet slurry samplers to gold mines in West Africa, who rely on good gold accounting and reconciliation at their processing plants. The company offers equipment for both large and smaller gold producers.

With a range of two-in-one, primary and ancillary samplers, the company offers installations tailored to its customer’s specific applications. In addition, it is able to accommodate variables like throughput rates and slurry densities, including accounting for grade variability from various mine sources feeding a single processing plant, in many of the West African deposits.

For brownfield projects, the company offers solutions to suit and fit the structural constraints of the customer’s existing infrastructure.

Local service support is available from the company’s Ghana branch as well as regional agents and service providers operating in other countries. Specialists, engineers, design draughtsmen and millwrights are available to work on projects throughout the West African territories.