Mining and Metallurgical Norilsk Nickel : Nornickel installs new furnace at Nadezhda Smelter

The company's flagship enterprise is undergoing a large-scale reconstruction of its pyrometallurgical production, which will significantly improve the reliability of the technological process

In the

smelting

shop of the Nadezhda Smelter, specialists have completed the dismantling of the second flash smelting furnace and have begun installing the new smelting unit.

The Nadezhda Smelter processes nickel-pyrrhotite

concentrate

from the Talnakh Concentrator, nickel concentrate from the Norilsk Concentrator, a metal-containing product from the Talnakh Concentrator, and nickel

slag

from the Copper Smelter.

Since 2016, after the closure of the Nickel Smelter in Norilsk, the Nadezhda Smelter has been the only producer of copper-nickel

matte

in the company's Norilsk division. This matte is then sent via the Northern Sea Route for further processing in the company's Kola division.

Flash smelting furnace number two consists of three main sections: the reaction shaft where the

charge

is melted, the settler where matte and slag are separated, and the uptake where off-gases are removed.

The complete repair, including peripheral equipment, will take 60 days. To stay on schedule, specialists are installing the reaction shaft in parallel with dismantling work at the highest level. In the heart of the technological line, the foundation beams of the furnace are being positioned, after which the hearth will be installed. The next stage is the assembly of the furnace's water-cooled wall elements.

More than two thousand people are involved in the repair at the smelter. To manage the processes and meet deadlines, Nornickel has engaged a contractor with a ready-made solution - the Databriz system, which collects data from workers in real time via a mobile app and transmits it to the repair management center.

In October 2023, the first startup complex of Nornickel's flagship environmental project, the Sulfur Program, was launched at the Nadezhda Smelter. This program aims to minimize sulfur dioxide emissions at the enterprise. The project includes the construction of a technological complex for the production of technical sulfuric acid, the neutralization of technical sulfuric acid with natural limestone to produce gypsum, and the storage of gypsum sludge - a product of neutralization.