Sulphuric Acid News

Sulphuric Acid News

UZBEKISTAN

Metso Outotec to deliver two sulphuric acid plants to Uzbekistan

Almalyk Mining and Metallurgical Company (AMMC) has awarded Metso Outotec a euro 70 million order for the delivery of two sulphuric acid plants to be built for AMMC’s zinc roasting facility in Almalyk, Uzbekistan. Metso Outotec’s scope of delivery includes the design and delivery of Planet Positive equipment for two gas cleaning and sulphuric acid plants, which will process all off-gases from the zinc roasters into industrial-grade sulphuric acid. In addition, Metso Outotec will deliver utility facilities, such as a common cooling tower system and a common air compressor system.

The two plants, which will be identical, form part of work that Metso Outotec is conducting Almalyk’s entire new copper smelter complex, including flash smelting, slag concentration and electrolytic refinery technologies, as well as sulphuric acid production. The two plants will replace AMMC’s existing facilities for gas cleaning and sulphuric acid production. The plants will improve operational efficiency and reliability and significantly reduce the facilities’ environmental impact. The sulphuric acid plants are expected to be operational by the end of the second half of 2025.

Almalyk MMC is the main copper producer in Uzbekistan. The company produces refined copper, gold, silver, zinc, molybdenum, lead concentrate and other products.

“We are extremely pleased that Almalyk has again selected us as the partner for providing gas cleaning and sulphuric acid technology. Metso Outotec’s advanced Planet Positive gas cleaning and sulphuric acid plant solution will improve the environmental performance of AMMC’s metallurgical operations,” says Hannes Storch, Vice President, Metal and Chemical Processing at Metso Outotec.

AUSTRALIA

Port Pirie smelter restarts

Nyrstar is restarting its Port Pirie lead smelter in South Australia following a planned 55-day outage, according to its parent company, Belgian trading and logistics company Trafigura. The smelter was shut down in October 2022 for a major works and maintenance programme aimed at improving the site’s operational performance and lowering emissions. Completed at a cost of A$45 million ($28 million), the works included replacing refractory brickwork at the top submerged lance furnace, as well as major capital works for the blast furnace and sulphuric acid plant. According to Trafigura, Port Pirie, one of the world’s largest multi-metal smelters, with a history of operation going back 130 years, produced 160,000 tonnes of lead in 2018. In June 2020, Port Pirie signed a new licence agreement with Australia’s Environment Protection Authority to cap emissions by 20% as well as submit a comprehensive lead monitoring plan.

Concentrator plant for West Musgrave copper-nickel project

Metso Outotec has been awarded an order for the supply of key minerals processing technologies to the OZ Minerals copper-nickel West Musgrave Project in Western Australia, for an undisclosed sum. The order includes a cone crusher and Planet Positive classified flotation units and high-rate thickeners. The TankCell® e630 flotation units are the most proven large-scale cells in the 600m3 + category and are the largest installed base of operating cells in the world.

Ardmore mine supplying NZ phosphate producers

Fertilizer producers in New Zealand have been taking phosphate rock from the new Ardmore Phosphate Rock Mine near Mount Isa, Queensland, operated by Centrex subsidiary Agriflex Ltd, to assess it for quality. Ballance Agri-Nutrients says it has completed a successful production trial and that it expects to take further shipments in 2023. “For some time we’ve been looking to diversify our source of phosphate rock, a critical mineral required to maintain healthy soils, and find a source closer to New Zealand to help mitigate supply chain disruptions,” said Shane Dufaur, Ballance general manager operations and supply chain.

Agricultural cooperative Ravensdown in New Zealand has also imported 5,000 tonnes of rock from the mine for trial production of superphosphate. The phosphate rock will be tested and processed at Ravensdown’s Christchurch and Dunedin manufacturing sites.

Centrex chief executive Robert Mencel commented that Ardmore’s phosphate rock has a natural ultra-low cadmium level which eliminates the risk of heavy metal soil contamination and helps to maintain soil health. Agriflex’s solar drying process utilises the sun’s energy to naturally dry the product, also eliminating the most significant carbon emission stage of phosphate rock production. “It’s very high grade, and Australia’s proximity to New Zealand directly lowers carbon transport emissions on a percentage P basis,” he said.

INDONESIA

Elessent Clean Technologies opens office in Indonesia

Elessent Clean Technologies is opening a new office in Jakarta. The company says that the new office will be a core maintenance and reliability solutions provider for sulphuric acid plants in the region, as well as providing the full scope of technical services to customers. The global drive toward net zero carbon emissions has created an increasingly rapid demand for access to electric vehicles, wind energy technologies, batteries, fuel cells and other innovations to support this effort by consumers around the globe. The production of such technologies requires the use of energy metals, like nickel and copper, and an increasingly preferred method to extract battery grade nickel is high pressure acid leaching (HPAL) which requires sulphuric acid.

“The Jakarta office is Elessent’s sixth location serving the Asia Pacific market. The opening of the office demonstrates our commitment to serving this critical region. We’re pleased to bring first-class M&R solutions to sulphuric acid production facilities during a time of significant expansion in metal extraction,” said Kanson Xue, Director of Asia Pacific, Elessent.

“Elessent’s foundation was built, in large part, on the desire to change our world through sustainability and carbon neutrality efforts, and we couldn’t be more excited about the opportunities that our office in Indonesia will bring. We always strive to ensure our clients have the ability to meet their industry’s growth needs through the most environmentally conscious methods, and as a global leader in sulphuric acid technology licensing and expertise, our close proximity to clients will be a massive asset with the ongoing demand for battery metals.” said Eli Ben-Shoshan, CEO, Elessent.

Thickeners for HPAL plant

Chinese-owned Ningbo Lygend Resources Technology Ltd. has awarded Metso Outotec a contract to provide 25 state-of-the-art thickener units for its nickel laterite HPAL project on Obi island in Indonesia. Metso Outotec’s scope of delivery includes High Rate, High Compression, and Paste Thickening technologies equipped with Reactor-well™ feed system where applicable.

“Ningbo Lygend produces high quality MHP (mixed hydroxide precipitate) raw material for battery production in Indonesia. They chose Metso Outotec thickeners for their project, thanks to our sustainable, state-of-the-art technology combined with our good understanding and references of similar process plants. The Metso Outotec thickeners enable optimized production and high recovery rates,” explained Paul Sohlberg, Senior Vice President, Minerals Separation, Metso Outotec.

Work begins on new HPAL plant

Nickel miner PT Vale Indonesia has broken ground on its new joint venture high pressure acid leach (HPAL) plant, which is expected to have a production capacity of 120,000 t/a of nickel as a mixed hydroxide precipitate (MHP) for electric vehicle batteries, making it the largest MHP plant in the world. Speaking at the ground-breaking ceremony, director Bernardus Irmanto said that the company expected to complete construction in 2025. Vale is working with Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt to build the plant in the nickel-rich Pomalaa region of Sulawesi island, at a total investment cost of $4.29 billion. Under the joint venture agreement, Huayou will develop the Pomalaa project in Southeast Sulawesi and Vale will have rights to acquire up to a 30% stake in the project, and will supply nickel ore for the plant.

PAKISTAN

Shutdown for Fauji DAP plant

Fauji Fertilizer Bin Qasim Ltd (FFBL) has shut down its diammonium phosphate (DAP) plant at Port Qasim, near Karachi. The company says that the stoppage is in order “to more efficiently manage its DAP inventory owing to demand and supply situation in the market”. During the shutdown period, planned annual maintenance activity will be carried out in January 2023 to ensure reliability and sustainable safe operations at the plant, but Fauji says a restart will be “based on the DAP market situation”.

FFBL is the only DAP producer in Pakistan, using phosphoric acid supplied under a long-term joint venture arrangement with OCP. Pakistan consumes around 2 million t/a of DAP, around two thirds of which is imported. But DAP demand has declined significantly in 2022, due to heavy rains/flooding across the country and the high price of DAP on the domestic market. In spite of an increase in government subsidy to soften the price increases, demand in October 2022 was down 80% on the same month in 2021 according to the National Fertilizer Development Centre (NFDC).

FINLAND

Metso Outotec launches digital optimiser for wet electrostatic precipitation

Metso Outotec is launching a digital optimiser for its wet gas cleaning solution, the Editube™ wet electrostatic precipitator (WESP). WESPs are a necessity prior to sulphuric acid plants processing metallurgical off-gas to ensure high-quality acid. The Editube WESP has a very high removal efficiency potential, where dust levels in the outlet are commonly measured at below 0.5 mg/Nm3 .

The new WESP optimiser improves the operation of the WESP section by better adjusting it to changes in the overall process. Metso Outotec says that this means there is reduced risk of damage to plastic tubes during low acid load conditions, start-up, and commissioning; higher removal efficiency and lower flashover frequency during high acid load conditions; and that it also offers energy savings whenever there is spare capacity. It also monitors the WESPs for abnormal behaviour, providing operators with otherwise unavailable information and enabling faster detection of damages and facilitating troubleshooting, as well as faster and more accurate online support from Metso Outotec experts.

CANADA

Chemtrade wins lawsuit over Canexus acquisition

Chemtrade Logistics Income Fund says that the Court of King’s Bench of Alberta has ruled in favour of the company in its lawsuit against Superior Plus Corporation. The lawsuit involved the failed attempt by Superior to acquire Canexus, prior to Chemtrade’s 2017 acquisition of that company. The Arrangement Agreement between Superior and Canexus contained a clause requiring Superior to pay $25 million if the acquisition did not close due to a failure to obtain Canadian and US competition and anti-trust regulatory approvals.

Chemtrade operates a diversified business providing industrial chemicals and services to customers in North America and around the world. Itis one of North America’s largest suppliers of sulphuric acid, and spent acid processing services, and is also the largest producer of high purity sulphuric acid for the semiconductor industry in North America. Chemtrade is a leading regional supplier of sulphur, and provides industrial services such as processing by-products and waste streams.

KAZAKHSTAN

Metso Outotec to supply SX/EW plant

Metso Outotec has signed a e35 million agreement with Kyzyl Aray Copper, a subsidiary of Caravan Resources, for the supply of copper solvent extraction and electrowinning (SX/EW) technology for a plant to be built in the Karagandy region of the Republic of Kazakhstan. Metso Outotec’s technology package includes a modular VSFX ® solvent extraction plant and the main process equipment for the electrowinning plant.

“We are looking forward to working with Kyzyl Aray Copper on this project. The energy-efficient solvent extraction plant, which is part of our Planet Positive product range, reduces emissions and is safe to operate. The Kyzyl Aray Copper project will become an important new reference for Metso Outotec in the growing Kazakhstan copper market as a supplier of a complete production plant that uses solvent extraction and electrowinning technology for copper recovery,” said Mikko Rantaharju, Vice President, Hydrometallurgy, at Metso Outotec.

INDIA

Hindustan Zinc to convert to green energy

Hindustan Zinc Ltd (HZL), majority owned by the Vedanta Group as well as a 29% stake held by the Indian government, says that it will spend $1 billion on converting its diesel-powered mining vehicles into battery-operated ones and converting to green energy use. The company has been running four of its 900 mining vehicles on battery power on a pilot basis. HZL, which produces 0.75 million t/a of zinc and 0.25 million t/a of lead, has set itself the goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2050. To that end, it has signed a power purchase agreement for sourcing up to 200 MW of renewable energy, which will avoid 1.2 million t/a of carbon emission. Currently, it has a 475 MW captive thermal plant at the main smelter unit at Chanderiya and has over 275 MW of wind and 40 MW of solar power. As part of decarbonising operations, the company has signed a 25 year power purchase agreement with Serentica for 200 MW, which will reduce thermal power intake proportionately.

The company is also planning to set up a 500,000 t/a diammonium phosphate (DAP) plant at Chanderiya in Rajasthan in order to make use of its large sulphuric acid output. Work has already begun on the DAP unit and commissioning is expected in the second half of 2024 according to HZL. The plant will source 60-70% of its acid requirement from HZL’s smelters and will use domestic Indian phosphate rock. HZL is cash rich at the moment with a 44% increase in profits for the first half of the 2022-23 financial year due to rising zinc prices globally. It operates eight mines and two zinc smelters, at Chanderiya and Patnagar.

Deal for phosphate rock import

India’s government is reportedly planning to finalise supply agreements with Morocco and Egypt to obtain a secure supply of phosphate rock. The Indian government is concerned about sourcing phosphate rock and phosphoric acid to supply the country’s major DAP fertilizer sector and has asked fertilizer companies to strengthen their supply chain resilience. The country has faced shortages as China halted supplies of DAP because of rising prices and falling demand. In the 2021-22 financial year, Indian fertiliser companies sold 9.2 million t/a of DAP and 12.1 million t/a of NPKs, but these figures have dropped to just 2.7 million t/a and 6.7 million t/a respectively for the 2022-23 year to date, with 4.7 million t/a of DAP and 1.9 million t/a of NPK imported. Rising fertilizer prices are also leading to a sharp rise in government subsidies paid to farmers.

Indian companies are understood to be looking at joint ventures with potential phosphate suppliers such as Morocco and Egypt. In August 2022, Coromandel International also bought a 45% stake in Baobab Mining and Chemicals Corporation, a phosphate mining company in Senega to supply phosphate for 1 million t/a of DAP/ NPK production in India.

DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO

New smelter for Kamoa

Kamoa Copper has selected Metso Outotec to supply a high-capacity direct blister furnace to the company’s copper mining complex expansion in the DRC. Metso Outotec’s scope of delivery consists of key equipment and automation for the production of blister copper in a single flash furnace without the need for separate converting stages. The 500,000 t/a copper throughput furnace will have the largest licensed flash smelting capacity in the world. The scope also includes intelligent safety and monitoring automation systems for the furnace.

“Non-ferrous metals play a key role in the green transition, and a major increase in global copper production is required to support this transition. We are pleased to support Kamoa Copper in their ambitious expansion project, in which high capacity and reliable, sustainable processes play a vital role. Our collaboration has been excellent throughout the initial stages of the process, including the initial study work, basic engineering as well as pilot testing,” Jyrki Makkonen, Vice President, Smelting at Metso Outotec.

MOROCCO

OCP announces green investment strategy

OCP Group has launched a new strategic programme for 2023-2027 devoted to raising fertiliser production, investing in new green fertilisers and renewable energy. OCP’s “green growth programme” provides for a global investment of about $13 billion over the period. It is based on increasing mining and fertilizer production capacities while achieving full carbon neutrality by 2040. This investment program aims to increase production capacity from the current 12 million t/a of fertilizer to 20 million t/a by 2027. In particular, it provides for an extension of mining capacities via the opening of a new mine in Meskala in the Essaouira region and the installation of a new fertilizer production complex in Mzinda. The latter will process rock from the mines at Benguerir and Youssoufia as well as from the new mine of Meskala.

OCP Group will supply all its industrial facilities with green energy by 2027 using wind, solar, hydroelectric and co-generation sources. The company says that this will not only strengthen OCP’s competitive advantages but will also power new seawater desalination plants to meet the Group’s needs as well as supplying drinking water and irrigation to areas bordering OCP sites. The investment in renewable energy will enable the Group, the world’s largest importer of ammonia, to free itself from imports over the long term. Planned substantial investments in producing green hydrogen and green ammonia will enable OCP to produce wholly sustainable fertilizers and fertilization solutions adapted to the specific needs of different soils and crops. OCP aims to produce 1 million t/a of green ammonia by 2027 and 3 million t/a by 2032. A green ammonia production complex is planned in the south of Tarfaya, with a capacity of 1 mill ion t/a which will be powered by a solar and wind farm with a total capacity of 3.8 GW. An electrolyser production plant will support this project, ensuring local industrial integration within the new value chain. A desalination plant with a capacity of 60 million m3 will supply these industrial facilities and contribute to meeting regional water needs.

UNITED STATES

Copper project to receive SX/EW package

Metso Outotec says that it has signed an agreement for the supply of copper solvent extraction and electrowinning technology to an undisclosed client in North America. The order value was put at approximately e50 million. Metso Outotec’s scope of delivery includes basic engineering, a technology package for the VSF® solvent extraction and electrowinning plants, as well as advisory services for mechanical installation and commissioning, start-up, and spare parts.

“We are looking forward to working on this project, which will be an important reference for Metso Outotec in North America’s growing copper market,” said Mikko Rantaharju, Vice President, Hydrometallurgy, at Metso Outotec.