Ore beneficiation plant no. 1 of Metinvest Group's Northern GOK has begun producing iron ore concentrate with an Fe content of 68% using ore from the Pershotravnevy quarry. This has increased the plant’s pellet quality, creating the opportunity to enter new markets.
In 2023, Northern GOK will celebrate its 60th anniversary, and ore beneficiation plant no. 1 has been a key unit from the outset. As part of the project, both stages of the processing section have been designed to handle ores from the Pershotravnevy and Hannivskyi quarries based on a three-stage grinding scheme. The plant has a design capacity of 30.5 million tonnes of ore a year and was producing concentrate with an Fe content of 65.8%. At the same time, new times mean new requirements. To maintain competitiveness in the market, Northern GOK employees focused their efforts on improving concentrate quality.
To achieve this, ore enrichment specialists proposed changing the process at blast furnace no. 1 and operating using ore from the Pershotravnevy quarry, which contains finely disseminated magnetite quartzite. The specialists calculated that to obtain concentrate with an Fe content of 68%, additional exposure of the mineral would be needed. This can be done by increasing the grinding by one more stage in the cycle, including classification, wet magnetic separation and desliming. For this purpose, during the first stage, the combination of sections and installation of new routes for pumping industrial products between them were completed. The result was a concentrate of the highest quality. The first stage of ore beneficiation plant no. 1 began operating under the new approach in July. Earlier, in January, the second stage was launched based on the four-stage scheme.
Commenting on the news, Andriy Skachkov, general director of Northern GOK, said: “Metinvest has been focusing on making pellets and products with a high Fe content, and Northern GOK is also working actively in this area. We have implemented operational improvements at ore beneficiation plant no. 1 and changed the process to obtain higher-quality concentrate. We have overhauled the Lurgi 552B induration machine and now have an offering for European steelmakers: pellets with an Fe content of 65% and concentrate with 68%. With such products, the Group can enter more profitable sales markets and keep production fairly high.”
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