Designing gold extraction processes: Performance study of a case-based reasoning system

•A CBR system able to retrieve flowsheet alternatives for a gold ore was built.•48 cases of gold mining projects and nine attributes were modelled successfully.•The system’s flowsheet retrieval was evaluated with five test ores.•Expert opinions and the ores’ original processes were compared against the results.•The system performed well compared to both the experts and the original flowsheets.