Customer: Norilsk Nickel Zapolarny Kombinat (Nornickel). With $880 billion annual revenue, the largest mineral processing and metallurgical complex in Russian Federation. Nornickel is also the World’s largest producer of Nickel and Palladium, the fourth largest Platinum and Rhodium producer, 11^th producer of copper, and in addition Gold, Silver, Rhodium, Iridium, Selenium, Ruthenium, and Tellurium.

Location: Norilsk, Russia. The northernmost industrial city in the world with a population of over 150,000, most of them employed by Nornickel plants and mines or by infrastructure. Without rail or road connection to other cities in Russia, Norilsk can only be accessed by the Yenisei river from the south, the Arctic Ocean from the north, or by air. It is a self-contained enclave in the vast tundra.  

Project Description: All gravity system for additional recovery of Platinum and Palladium from Outokumpu flotation’s running tailings. The highest grade, minus 20 microns fraction, was isolated by the unique arrangement of 425 x 2” (51mm) hydrocyclones pressurized in the specially designed canisters. 

Overflow of HC containing Pt and Pd was passed to four centrifugal concentrators and subjected to 150 G-force recovering PGM and Ni to concentrate. The concentrate was then combined with the plant’s downstream process for final metals recovery.

Overall thruput was 500 t/h.