KCA is one of the pioneering firms in precious metals heap leaching. Our first U.S. project at Manhattan, Nevada in 1972 was only the third heap leach in the world. We have since delivered 500+ engineering projects, 17 EPCM contracts, and 74 modular plants across six continents.
KCA can provide basic concept studies to guide your exploration efforts. As the project matures, we provide studies up through bankable feasibility, into detailed design and construction. KCA bankable studies have an admirable track record for securing financing.
• Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) — ±40% capex
• Pre-Feasibility Study (PFS) — ±25% capex
• Feasibility Study (FS) — ±15% capex (bankable)
KCA has a complete in-house design team to bring flowsheets to life — creating efficient, practical plants to fit project needs. With LiDAR scanning, our design team can accurately retrofit or design expansions for existing plants.
• New Plant Design
• Plant Expansions
• Operating Plant Retrofitting
All KCA engineers travel extensively and are continuously exposed to a wide variety of operating problems and solutions. The review of operations is a major aspect of what we do.
• Heap Leach Operations Review
• Crusher Operations
• Mill Operations
• Metal Inventory Review
Performance audits of a heap leach project are difficult because heap leach recovery rates depend on many operational factors. KCA has the experience to identify the real drivers.
KCA designed, engineered, and was the general contractor on the Hog Ranch, Nevada 4,000 tonnes/day heap leach. KCA provided all process installations and infrastructure at this remote site — including man-camp, water and power supply systems. Hog Ranch was built at a total cost of $7.7M and was producing gold within 16 weeks of starting construction.
17 turn-key EPCM projects delivered including:
• Camino Rojo — ORLA Mining, $125M, 2021–2022
• Pinos Altos — Agnico-Eagle, $134M, 2006–2009
• Ocampo — Gammon Lake, $104M, 2004–2007
• La India — Agnico-Eagle, 13-month EPCM, 2012–2013
KCA can provide a complete turnkey project to process your ore in the most cost-effective manner. Why hire your own staff? We maintain personnel with peak technical skills, fully supported by our experienced management team. We can handle your project from laboratory testing through gold production. We work throughout the world from our offices in Nevada, Australia, and Mexico.
Selected recent projects where KCA delivered this service. All from our portfolio of 500+ engineering projects.
Whether you’re at scoping stage or ready to break ground, KCA has the lab capacity, engineering bench, and EPCM experience to deliver.
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