Nornickel harnesses new technology to boost efficiency
Nornickel was also able to streamline production flows at its two concentrators. These efforts have translated into higher metal recovery rates and end product output.
Nickel Plant in Norilsk was shut down in 2016. This outdated facility generated a massive amount of sulphur dioxide, and the modernisation of its obsolete equipment was not something on the table for the Company. Nornickel had completed extensive preliminary work to gear up for Nickel Plant’s shutdown in order to reconfigure its feedstock processing amid the closure of one of its smelters, a full-cycle facility. The Company upgraded Nadezhda Metallurgical Plant and completed Stage 2 at Talnakh Concentrator (commissioned in 2016).
On top of that, Nornickel developed and took a number of steps to utilise feedstock more efficiently. Since 2018, Talnakh Concentrator has been using a technology to extract valuable components from low-grade feedstock (pyrrhotite with a low nickel content). This enables the Company to produce a concentrate with nickel content twice the original level (1–1.2%). The optimisation of the pressure oxidative leaching process at the hydrometallurgical facilities of Nadezhda Metallurgical Plant helped the Company to keep these production capacities in operation, which delivers additional output (up to 4,000 t of nickel, 1,600 t of copper and 650 kg of platinum group metals per annum).
Since 2021, Nornickel has been sending part of the low-nickel pyrrhotite tailings from Talnakh Concentrator to Norilsk Concentrator using its existing hydrotransport system to produce pyrrhotite-rich concentrate and charge it in addition to the nickel concentrate at Norilsk Concentrator, which also results in a gain in output (up to 800 t of nickel, 600 t of copper and 350 kg of platinum group metals per annum).
Overall economic effect from this initiative is expected to exceed RUB 350 mln per annum.
“The flexibility of the existing transport systems and concentration technologies, as well as the latest findings including those received by Nornickel’s experts provide a fresh perspective on production. The reconfiguration and optimisation across different processes help us use feedstock much more efficiently and have tangible economic effect,” said Yekaterina Akhmadeyeva, Director of Nornickel’s Production and Technical Department.