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STEELPOORT, Limpopo (miningweekly.com) – The Lion ferrochrome smelter owned and operated by the Glencore Merafe Chrome Venture, uses 37% less electricity than conventional ferrochrome processes to produce the equivalent volume of ferrochrome.
In addition, the smelter needs far less coke than conventional smelters as well as using significant amounts of locally produced, lower cost anthracite and char. (Also see attached video).
Had the Lion operation not installed Premus technology, it would have needed an additional 1 776 MWh to produce the same volume of ferrochrome. Instead, all four furnaces collectively utilise some 4 800 MWh a day. (Also see attached video)
The efficient use of energy – significantly enhanced through pelletising to cope with increasing volumes of fine chrome ore, in-house training programmes to overcome skills shortages, the proximity of the Port of Maputo, the use of more cost-effective upper group two (UG2) chromite ore recovered from platinum tailings, as well as radically reduced use of expensive coke – are the key sources of competitive advantage that place both phases of Lion – known as Lion I and Lion II – in a cost-leadership position.
The UG2 ore is sourced from the nearby Mototolo mine, a platinum joint venture between the London-, Hong Kong- and now also Johannesburg-listed Glencore, black economic-empowerment (BEE) partner Kagiso Tiso and Anglo American Platinum.
The bulk of the smelter’s ore arrives by road from the Glencore Merafe Chrome Venture’s Thorncliffe and Magareng mines, which are some 25 km away, and the final ferrochrome product leaves by road in an area not served by rail.
“It’s friable, metallurgical grade chrome ore, which we pelletise to produce the ferrochrome,” says Lion general works manager Dr Andre van Zyl, who gave Mining Weekly Online a conducted tour of the impressive plant, situated in Steelpoort, a mining town in Sekhukhune district municipality in the Limpopo province, on the Mpumalanga province border. (Also watch the attached video).
Van Zyl, who has been general works manager since October 2009, is ably assisted by chemical engineer Rembu Matozi, who has been works manager since November 2012.
The pelletised material is put through prereduction kilns, which radically reduce furnace time and thus electricity consumption.
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