Dec 16 2004
Companhia Vale do Rio Doce (CVRD) announces that it will build a plant to process copper using the hydrometallurgical route. The objective of this plant, which will have capacity to produce 10,000 tons of copper cathodes per year, is to test a new technological route to produce the metal from copper sulphide concentrates.
The hydrometallurgical process is based on pressure oxidation followed by atmospheric leaching, solvent extraction and copper electro winning. This process uses single processes that are conventional for the copper industry (oxide ore) and for the zinc industry (atmospheric leaching). The Canadian company Cominco Engineering Services Ltd. (CESL), from the Teck Cominco group, developed the technology. The CESL process has technical and economical advantages such as: capacity to treat concentrates containing impurities, flexibility in terms of production scale, good ability to recover by-products, besides being environmentally friendly.
CVRD will use ore from the Sossego mine to feed the semi-industrial plant, which is expected to start up by the second quarter of 2007 and be productive for two years. We estimate that this period will be sufficient to prove the feasibility of industrial production through the hydrometallurgical route, supporting the construction of a larger plant to process copper ore from other deposits owned by CVRD, including the Salobo project. The capex estimated for the construction of this semi-industrial plant is US$ 58 million.
Detaining this technology is a competitive differential for CVRD, since processing sulphide copper through the hydrometallurgical route is unpublished in the industry. This project’s success will guarantee more flexibility for the Company, contributing to position it among the largest copper producers in the world.
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