Copeland, AM, Lyell, KA & van Greunen, P 2006, 'Disposal of Belt Filtered Tailings – Skorpion Zinc Case Study: Feasibility, Design and Early Operation', in R Jewell, S Lawson & P Newman (eds), Paste 2006: Proceedings of the Ninth International Seminar on Paste and Thickened Tailings, Australian Centre for Geomechanics, Perth, pp. 243-254, https://doi.org/10.36487/ACG_repo/663_21
(https://papers.acg.uwa.edu.au/p/663_21_Copeland/)
Abstract: Skorpion Zinc Mine comprises an opencast mine and refinery and is located in the south west of Namibia in 
a very arid area, with desert sand dunes to the west and rugged mountains to the east. The refinery began 
operating in mid 2003 treating an oxide orebody to recover zinc by means of a leaching, solvent extraction 
and electro-winning process. The tailings produced from the leaching process is belt filtered to recover 
soluble zinc, justifying the expense of filtration. The filter cake is a fine grained material with significant 
clay and mica fractions and has a high average moisture content of 40% (water mass/total mass). While 
filtration achieved key objectives of recovering soluble zinc contained in residue and minimising water 
consumption, the transportation and disposal of the tailings posed technical challenges. This case study aims 
to cover a 7 year period including the feasibility study, design and early operating period, highlighting issues 
and decisions associated with each phase of the project.