Nestled in the high-rainfall region of Mindanao, Philippines, the Kingking Copper-Gold Project stands as one of Southeast Asia’s most significant undeveloped porphyry deposits. Managed by St. Augustine Gold and Copper Limited, this world-class asset is poised to become a major producer of copper concentrate and cathode, alongside substantial gold and silver by-products. The project’s location in the Philippines, a country with a rich mining history, positions it to be a key contributor to the global supply of critical metals. The comprehensive processing facility, designed for a nameplate capacity of 60,000 tonnes per day (tpd), employs a sophisticated hybrid flowsheet to efficiently recover metals from both sulfide and oxide ore types, representing a benchmark in modern, integrated mineral processing design.
- Location & Ownership: Situated in Mindanao, Philippines, the project is owned and operated by St. Augustine Gold and Copper Limited (SAGC).
- Production Target: The facility is designed to process 21.9 million tonnes of ore annually, equivalent to a 60,000 tpd throughput rate.
- Primary Processing Route: A hybrid flowsheet combining conventional flotation for sulfide ores with agitated leaching of flotation tails and dedicated heap leaching for oxide ores.
- Final Products: The circuit produces a high-grade copper concentrate for smelting, gold-silver doré bullion from gravity recovery, and high-purity LME-grade copper cathodes from solvent extraction and electrowinning (SX-EW).
- Crushing Circuit: Run-of-mine (ROM) ore is primary crushed by a 60” x 110” gyratory crusher, set to a 180 mm product, and conveyed 3.4 km to separate 200,000-tonne capacity coarse ore stockpiles for sulfide and oxide treatment.
- Grinding Circuit: A conventional SABC (SAG-Ball mill-Pebble Crusher) configuration is used. The circuit features a massive 12.2m x 7.3m EGL, 28 MW gearless drive SAG mill and two 8.23m x 12.8m, 20 MW ball mills, targeting a grind size of 80% passing 106 microns for flotation.
- Flotation & Regrind: Copper sulfide minerals are recovered using 14 large 300 m³ rougher flotation cells. The rougher concentrate is reground to 80% passing 20 microns in two 300 kW vertical mills before undergoing three stages of cleaning to achieve smelter-grade concentrate.
- Gravity Gold Recovery: A dedicated circuit bleeds a stream from the cyclone underflow to Knelson or Falcon concentrators, followed by intensive cyanidation and electrowinning to produce doré bullions, accounting for 17% of overall gold recovery.
- Agitated Leach for Tails: Flotation tailings from oxide-dominant ore are leached for 4 hours in a series of agitated tanks at 50°C with 25 kg/t of sulfuric acid. Copper is recovered from the pregnant solution via a 6-stage Counter-Current Decantation (CCD) circuit feeding the SX-EW plant.
- Heap Leach for Oxides: Oxide ore is crushed to 80% minus 20 mm, agglomerated with 6 kg/t of acid, and stacked in 6-meter lifts on an “on-off” pad. It is irrigated for a 60-day leach cycle plus a 7-day rinse, with the pregnant solution reporting to the central SX-EW facility.
- Solvent Extraction & Electrowinning (SX-EW): A central plant with two parallel mixer-settler trains and four banks of EW cells processes pregnant solution from both the agitated leach and heap leach operations to produce LME-grade copper cathodes.
- Tailings Management: Emphasizing sustainability, all tailings are dewatered using high-rate thickeners and belt filters to ~15% moisture for dry-stack disposal, significantly reducing environmental footprint and water consumption.
- Water & Power: The entire operation requires 855.6 m³/h of freshwater makeup. Power consumption is estimated at 1.051 billion kWh annually, or 26.4 kWh per tonne of ore processed.
- Cyanide Code Compliance: The gravity gold circuit includes a SO2-Air cyanide destruction system to treat effluent to ICMC standards (<50 ppm WAD cyanide), with plans for full Cyanide Code certification upon operation.
- Key Reagents: Major consumables include Lime (1,360 g/t), Limestone (3,600 g/t), Xanthate collectors (38 g/t), and Sulfuric Acid for leaching.
Source: NI 43-101 Technical Report | Feasibility | Project: Gold Project | Date: July 2025
Further Reading
Technical report and processing history
The following archived source profiles have been consolidated here to preserve the project’s processing history and study context.
Kingking Copper-Gold Project — 2025 Technical Report
Kingking Copper-Gold Project — 2025 Technical Report
| Company | SAGC |
| Date | 2025 |
| Region | Not Specified |
| Commodities | Copper, Gold, Silver |
Executive Summary
The Kingking Copper-Gold Project technical report outlines a comprehensive recovery process designed for a nameplate capacity of 60,000 tonnes per day. The facility is engineered to handle both sulphide and oxide ore types, utilizing a combination of conventional flotation for sulphides and heap leaching for oxides. The process flow includes primary gyratory crushing, semi-autogenous grinding (SAG) followed by ball milling, and a multi-stage flotation circuit to produce copper concentrate.
Gold recovery is integrated into the copper flotation circuit, with additional free gold recovered via gravity concentration and intensive cyanidation to produce doré bullions. Oxide copper ores are processed through heap leaching and agitated leaching of flotation tails, with the resulting pregnant leach solutions treated via solvent extraction and electrowinning (SX-EW) to produce copper cathodes. The design incorporates specific availability factors and metallurgical test results from AMEC Minproc and Leach, Inc. to ensure equipment sizing meets maximum expected flowrates.
The project is currently in the development phase, with construction planned to commence following the completion of the design study. The company intends to adhere to the International Cyanide Management Code (ICMC) and plans to become a signatory upon construction start. The process plant includes extensive reagent storage, control systems, and tailing dewatering facilities to support dry-stack tailing storage, ensuring environmental compliance and operational efficiency.
Reports
Entities
Concepts
Website: https://sagcmining.com/what-we-do/the-king-king-copper-gold-project/
Report Date: 2025
Region: Not Specified
Project Status:
Commodity: Copper, Gold, Silver
Throughput:
Mine Life:
Mine Type:
Ore type:
