The Sudbury Star is the City of Greater Sudbury’s daily newspaper.
An American company has won a $55-million contract to design and supply a new sulfuric acid plant for Vale Ltd.’s smelter in Sudbury — part of a massive, multibillion-dollar retrofit of the facility.
“We are very pleased that Vale has selected our technology for this important project, and we look forward to continuing our relationship with Vale,” Andy Kremer, vice-president of Jacobs Engineering Group Inc., said in a release.
The new acid plant is part of Vale’s Clean Atmospheric Emissions Reduction (AER) Project. The overall project is designed to cut sulfur dioxide emissions at the Sudbury site by more than 70% from current levels, and and cut dust and metal emissions by up to 40%. Vale considers the $2-bllion Clean AER Project to be the most significant environmental investment ever contemplated in the Sudbury Basin.
This is the second major Clean AER contract Vale has awarded this month. Last week, SNC-Lavalin Group Inc of Montreal won a $200-million contract to manage the modernization of the nickel smelter complex. SNC will be responsible for project management, engineering, procurement and construction management.
Construction is expected to begin in April and be completed near the end of 2015. Vale previously said the retrofit will require about eight million person-hours of additional labour, with 1,300 workers on-site during peak construction.
Jacobs’ acid plant contract includes the design of the complete sulfuric acid plant contact section, as well as supply of all equipment and some materials.
The plant features Jacobs’ proprietary Chemetics equipment throughout, including stainless steel converter (with internal exchanger), radial flow gas-gas exchangers, acid coolers and SARAMET distributors and piping.
The bulk of the proprietary equipment is expected to be fabricated at Jacobs’ facility in Pickering, Ont.
Jacobs Engineering is no stranger to Sudbury; it was awarded a contract to modernize the existing acid plant in 2002 by the former Inco. In addition, it has had numerous orders for proprietary equipment since the original acid plant was built in the 90s.
Jacobs Engineering is a pub-l icly traded company with 60,000 employees and 2011 revenues of more than $10 billion. It provides technical, professional and construction services globally and is headquartered in Pasadena, Calif.
Its primary markets include aerospace and defence, automotive and industrial, buildings, chemicals and polymers, consumer and forest products, energy, environmental programs, infrastructure, mining and minerals, oil and gas, pharmaceuticals and biotechnology, refining, and technology.
Acid test
The principal uses for sulfuric acid include lead-acid batteries for cars and other vehicles, mineral processing, fertilizer manufacturing, oil refining, wastewater processing and chemical synthesis.