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1. An apparatus, when used for processing magnetite iron ore, including a first stage open circuit mill system and a deslime thickener arranged downstream thereof, the first stage open circuit mill system comprising: an upstream cyclone and a mill for grinding particles arranged together in an open circuit configuration, wherein the upstream cyclone is arranged to operate as a splitter by diverting overflow of the upstream cyclone to the downstream deslime thickener and by feeding underflow of the upstream cyclone to the mill, with ground product from the mill being sent to the downstream deslime thickener, the downstream deslime thickener being used to deslime material received from the mill and from the upstream cyclone overflow at a rise rate to discard silica and non-magnetic materials to thereby produce a magnetic concentrate stream, the apparatus further comprising a second stage open circuit mill system comprising a mill, wherein the mill of the first stage open circuit mill system is configured to operate at a lower energy grind mode than the mill of the second stage open circuit mill system, and wherein difficult particles are allowed to pass through the mill of the first stage open circuit mill system at above a target grind size to be processed and/or discarded through later processing steps.
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