Brazilian-focused nickel producer Horizonte Minerals has successfully taken delivery to its site of a rotary kiln, a key long lead item for the project.
FLSmidth supplied the 110-meter-long kiln after a 10-month design and build process and a four-month journey from the factory to Araguaia’s project site. Following delivery to the Port of Outeiro in northern Brazil, the 802-tonne kiln was transhipped onto barges and transported down the Araguaia River and subsequently, back onto the highway for the final section into the project.
As part of the logistics along the route, over 500 power lines had to be lifted to allow the oversize kiln sections to pass through.
The rotary kiln design incorporates several features that improve the efficiency of the reduction process, lowering fuel consumption and supporting our target of becoming a low-cost producer of sustainable nickel. These features include optimisation to deliver low operating costs and reduced maintenance requirements; a kiln with the lowest specific heat loss in its class with a specific energy consumption of 489 Mcal/tonne product; and an integrated electrostatic precipitator, helping the operation not only be efficient, but also giving it one of the lowest particulate emission levels in its class.
“The rotary kiln is a key part of the process flow sheet at Araguaia. Its safe delivery to site is therefore an important milestone in the construction schedule given it is one of the key long lead packages,” said CEO Jeremy Martin.
“The FLSmidth rotary kiln…will allow Araguaia to meet its low cost and low environmental impact targets. The 11 individual sections of the kiln will now be welded together over the course of the next month, before the sections are lifted into place on top of the kiln piers for final welding and alignment.”
Source: Horizonte Minerals