[SMM Quick Review] Indonesia's CNI plans to build a fire-process and wet-process nickel-iron smelter expected to be put into operation in 2023.

"[hot] tomorrow! The grand annual meeting of the metal industry will begin! Come and watch the business cards of the guests.

SMM12: recently, PT Ceria Nugraha Indotama announced that PT Ceria Metalindo Indotama (CMI), a subsidiary of, PT Ceria Nugraha Indotama (CNI), has signed a cooperation contract with PT Wijaya Karya (Persero) Tbk (WIKA) to build a ferronickel smelter in Wallo City, Coraca, South Sulawesi Province, with a plan to produce ferronickel with a nickel content of 22%.

On Friday, the management of two companies in Jakarta witnessed the signatures of PT CNI Derian Sakmiwata, the chief director, and WIKA Harum Akhmad Zuhdi, the director of operations. Based on administrative, technical, price, qualification and PT CNI verification, WIKA has gained confidence as a project executive. It is hoped that by signing this strategic contract, PT CNI will be able to maximize its potential in domestic nickel and make the old and limited nickel industry a promising industry in the coming years. Nickel commodities are expected to stimulate the growth of the base metals industry and boost national economic growth at the same time. "

The project is planned to be located in the city of Wallo in Colaca, South Sulawesi Province, and the whole project is expected to take 36 months to build. WIKA's work includes engineering, procurement, construction, commissioning and financing. The construction of the Ni-Fe power plant will consist of two parts, production lines 3 and 4 (2 × 72 MVA), contracts worth 2.8 trillion rupees and US $180 million. The production line includes rotary kilns of 196t / h (wet tons), 178t / h rotary kilns (wet tons), 72MVA electric furnaces and other basic equipment, with the project target of reaching 27800 tons of nickel per year by 2023.

In addition to CMI, PT Ceria Kobalt Indotama (CKI), a subsidiary of CNI, also signed a contract with WIKA. The content of the project is different from the above projects, although they are all nickel smelting projects, the main content of the project is wet smelting of nickel laterite ore, with an estimated contract value of US $1.1 billion.

The core of CMI-WIKA cooperation is the development of cobalt extraction and purification facilities using HPAL technology, with an estimated annual production capacity of 100000 tons / year of mixed hydroxide precipitation of 40% Ni and 4% Co in (MHP) (MHP) and 158000 tons / year of chromium. The main production facilities of the plant are 3.6 million tons / year (dry tons) ore preparation facilities and hydrometallurgical plants, 770000 tons / year (wet tons) limestone treatment plant, 550000 tons / year sulfuric acid plant, 970000 tons of tailings and other smelting facilities.

Agung Budi announced that under his operation it would build a nickel mining and processing plant that would one day use a mature rotary kiln-electric furnace route to convert 1.59 per cent of lower-grade nickel ore into ferronickel with a nickel content of 22 per cent. Unlike other nickel plants in Indonesia, the smelter uses a circular furnace, which uses a rectangular furnace, which has the advantage of, first of all, a lower energy consumption due to the design of immersion electrodes. Second, due to the flexibility of the rectangular structure, the service life is longer, which well overcomes the problem of furnace expansion. Third, it has a good level of nickel recovery.

At the same time, the cobalt extraction and smelting facility development project, which is the core of CKI-WIKA cooperation, will adopt high-pressure acid leaching (HPAL) technology, which has been proved to be able to treat laterite nickel ore containing 0.13% Co and 1.25% nickel into mixed hydroxide precipitates, which can produce 40, 000 tons of nickel metal and 4000 tons of cobalt metal per year, which is the main raw material for the production of new energy vehicle batteries.

The economically valuable by-product of this HPAL plant is 158000 tons of chromium each year. Due to low energy consumption, HPAL technology can use low-grade nickel ores to economically collect valuable minerals such as cobalt and nickel, thus minimizing operating costs, with recovery of up to 90 per cent of nickel and cobalt.

According to SMM, the project is expected to be put into production in 2023, and the main products of the above two projects are Feni with a nickel content of 22% and wet intermediate HMP nickel hydroxide. The signing of the project means that Indonesia's local nickel smelting project will continue to expand with Chinese investment projects in India, and the smooth commissioning of the project will bring new technological progress to Indonesia's local nickel and cobalt smelting industry.