Samarco Mineração’s new pelletizing furnace, inaugurated in April 2008 in Ponta Ubu, Brazil, was designed to treat an amazing 7.25 million tonnes of iron ore per year thus making it the world’s largest iron ore pelletizing plant. However, the plant is already exceeding its design capacity. “We are currently studying the feasibility of producing pellets even up to ten million tons per year in single strand indurating furnaces,” Thomas Schwalm, project director for ferrous technologies from Outotec, says.
Samarco’s new plant is part of a USD 1,183 million investment project, which includes a new concentrating plant and a second 396-kilometer-long pipeline from the company’s mining and beneficiation unit in Minas Gerais state. With global 17 percent market share, Samarco is the world’s second biggest seaborne exporter of iron ore pellets. The new plant will increase the company’s production of iron ore pellets by more than a third, up to 21.6 million tons per year.
A complete turnkey delivery
Starting in 2005, Outotec’s scope of delivery covered the design, engineering, delivery and construction of the core plant - the travelling grate indurating furnace area - as a lump-sum-turnkey project.
This embraced a double-deck roller screen, the indurating furnace with a grate area of 768 m2, and a hearth layer screen, as well as six process-gas fans, four electrostatic precipitators to minimize the environmental impact, all electrical and control systems and auxiliary equipment.
The entire engineering, civil works, erection of steel structure and electro-mechanical equipment were included as well as commissioning and technical training.
The new plant features Outotec’s leading-edge measuring and control technology and it is the first pelletizing plant in Brazil with an integrated expert system for optimized plant operation. Its objective is the maximization of the plant capacity while minimizing the electrical and thermal energy consumption of the plant and maintaining a defined product quality. This will result in significant savings in operating costs and diminished impact on the environment.
Technology for two thirds of the world’s iron ore pellets
Thomas Schwalm describes some of the unique challenges that the project entailed:
“We had to implement the project in a short time frame (30 months) and with approximately 80 percent of local supplies and services in an environment, where we had to put up a taskforce from a scratch to finish the project successfully.”
Considering the obstacles, it is not a coincidence that Samarco opted for Outotec’s process with its new furnace - the majority of the world's iron ore pelletizing and sintering plants already use Outotec's processes.
In Brazil, one of the world’s largest iron ore producing countries alone, Outotec has delivered numerous sintering and pelletizing plants for the major producers of iron ore. The experiences with Samarco are helping Outotec not only to serve its existing and new customers in Brazil even better but the know-how can be transferred to other parts of the world too.