Mechel OAO, one of the leading Russian mining and metals companies, has announced that its Southern Urals Nickel Plant has opened an experimental industrial complex to produce ferronickel. The industrial complex will produce ferronickel by electric smelting. The complex’s launch is part of the reconstruction of the plant’s smelting facilities, aimed at increasing production efficiency, lowering production costs and dramatically reducing the volume of waste released into the atmosphere. The new technology will also allow the plant to significantly decrease operating costs by excluding several expensive components from the technological cycle.

The 12MW complex’s annual production capacity is some 4,500 t of ferronickel, with an average 20% nickel content. The smelting complex was designed by Bateman Engineering in South Africa, based on state-of-the-art technical developments employed for the ferroalloy industry and environment protection. In developing the project Bateman used an integrated approach, which made possible a combination of lower production costs with higher metal extraction levels and improved equipment endurance and reliability.”Launching this unique industrial complex for ferronickel production, with its 12MW electric furnace, which will be used to master the technology and train our personnel, marks the beginning of the plant’s sweeping modernisation. The development strategy implemented by the plant is due to ensure not only the present, but also the future for South Urals Nickel Plant and dramatically improve the facility’s economical and ecological parameters,” Mechel OAO’s Chairman of the Board of Directors Igor Zyuzin said in a statement.