OREANDA-NEWS. September 29, 2014. Full-scale prospective feed material processing tests were conducted using Nadezhda Metallurgical Plant’s (NMP’s) flash smelting furnace No.2 (FSF-2) at the Company’s Polar Division.

This feed will be processed at NMP starting from 2016, which corresponds to Nickel Plant shutdown timeframes indicated by the Company’s development strategy. Once obsolete capacities are decommissioned all of the Division’s nickel materials will be processed at NMP. The feed will predominantly contain nickel concentrate produced by Norilsk Concentrator.

NMP’s second train reached production capacity of over 3.5 thousand tons of feed per day during the testing. Test sample of the 2016 feed included nickel concentrate from Norilsk and Talnakh concentrators produced using “extra” technology, grinded nickel slag from Copper Plant and autoclave sulphide concentrate produced at NMP from pyrrhotite concentrate.

Operating parameters of both FSF-2 and NMP were continuously observed throughout the testing. Monitoring was conducted by the specialists of NMP, Production Facility Engineering Support Center, Control and Analysis and Production Departments of the Company’s Polar Division, Gipronickel Institute and Outotec (Finland). Testing confirmed that prospective feed can fundamentally be processed at NMP. Trial procedure helped develop recommendations concerning changes in the technological parameters of FSF smelting operations and its engineering design.