Sulphuric acid production plant for Ambatovy Nickel
Bateman Engineering has been awarded an EP contract by Dynatec
Madagascar SA (DMSA) worth approximately US$100 million to provide
a 5,500 t/day sulphur-burning sulphuric acid facility for the utilities
section of the Ambatovy Nickel project.
The plant will be constructed at DMSA, the Ambatovy processing plant,
10 km south of Tamatave, Madagascar. The full production of sulphuric
acid will be used in the pressure-leach circuit processing nickel
laterite ore from the AAMSA mine site.
Bateman Engineering, via its South African operation, will be responsible
for the design and engineering of the facility as well as the procurement
of the equipment, while construction, verification and commissioning
of the facility will be covered under a separate services agreement.
The facility will comprise a single sulphur melting and filtration
circuit with two separate stand-alone 2,750 t/day sulphuric acid plants.
Elemental sulphur, imported to the site, will be melted in the sulphur
melting circuit, filtered to remove tramp contaminants before it is
combusted in a sulphur furnace and oxidised by dry air to form sulphur
dioxide gas.
The sulphur dioxide will then be fed to the converters, in which it
will be oxidised by oxygen in the presence of a vanadium-pentoxide
catalyst. The resulting sulphur trioxide will enter the absorption
towers and react with water to form sulphuric acid with a concentration
of at least 98.5 %.
The reactions involved in the conversion of sulphur to sulphuric acid
are all very exothermic and a system of heat recovery from waste heat
boilers will be provided to utilise the heat generated to form steam,
which will be used in other parts of the processing plant.
The acid producing technology will be supplied by Noram Engineering
and Constructors of Canada, with whom Bateman Engineering has an exclusive
licence for the sub-Saharan African region. The technology and the
equipment to be used are well proven in many plants around the globe,
and this acid plant will have a design life of approximately 25 years.
Noram has provided significant support to Bateman Engineering in its
strategy to re-enter the sulphuric acid plant market and has excellent
references within North America. This contract is Noram’s first
completely greenfield plant outside of North America.
The quality of the equipment and the materials of construction to
be used in the facility will be as important as the process design
and will provide an assurance that the common causes of failure and
non performance sometimes encountered in standard acid plants will
not be encountered.
The design and construction of the facility and its equipment and
structures will also conform to internationally accepted practices
with respect to safety, health and environmental aspects.
Engineering and procurement is to commence immediately with hot commissioning
of the first of the two sulphuric acid plants scheduled for September
2009 and the second one following approximately three months later.
This will be the first greenfield sulphuric acid production facility
to be built by Bateman Engineering in recent years and is an important
re-entry into this significant utility market.
With a design capacity of 60,000 t/a of nickel (and 5,600 t of cobalt),
Ambatovy is among the largest metals projects currently under development
in the world. It is anticipated that the nickel production costs at
Ambatovy will be near the bottom of the industry cost curve.
DMSA is 40 % owned by Sherritt International, 27.5 % by Sumitomo Corporation,
27.5 % by KORES (Korean Resources Corporation) and 5 % by SNC Lavalin.
More details may be obtained from Michael Hughes, Senior Project
Manager on +27-11-899-9111 or email SpecialProjects@BatemanEngineering.com.
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