Russia expands sulfuric acid production

Atomredmetzoloto (ARMZ) has opened a new sulfuric acid plant at the site of its subsidiary JSC Khiagda. The uranium mining arm of Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom, ARMZ said the plant is one of the biggest, most innovative projects it had undertaken.

Atomredmetzoloto (ARMZ) has opened a new sulfuric acid plant at the site of its subsidiary JSC Khiagda. The uranium mining arm of Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom, ARMZ said the plant is one of the biggest, most innovative projects it had undertaken.

JSC Khiagda workers assembled for the launch of the new plant (Image: ARMZ)

Sulfuric acid is used in uranium production to dissolve uranium oxides.

"JSC Khiagda can safely be called a company of the future now," ARMZ general director Vladimir Verkhovtsev said at the launch of the new facility on 5 September. "Not only because it is built to the most modern technological level, but also because it will supply raw materials to the Russian nuclear industry for more than a hundred years. As we celebrate the Russian nuclear industry's 70th anniversary, here we are, literally at the very start of the entire chain, at a rich deposit, from which the whole industry derives and will derive its power and strength."

JSC Khiagda is located in the Bauntovskiy district of the Republic of Buryatia, in the centre of the Vitimskoye uranium-ore district.

The company's chief geologist, Andrey Gladyshev said the district has uranium resources that are currently estimated to be 350,000 tonnes, including 250,000 tonnes suitable for in-situ leaching. The Khiagdinskoye, Istochnoye, Vershinnoye, Tetrakhskoe, Dybrynskoe, Namaruskoe, Koretkondinskoye and Kolichikanskoe ores are all either under development or in the planning stage for development, he added.

The new facility entered pilot operation in the summer of last year and in May this year received the go-ahead to start commercial operation. Documents are now being prepared, ARMZ said, for the construction of the second phase of the plant, which will include the storage of sodium nitrite.

JSC Khiagda general director Alexey Dementiev said the new facility was the "main event" for the company this year. It will enable the "innovation and introduction of new technologies with large-scale economic impact," he said.

Laying of the first foundation stone of the plant took place in March 2010. The general contractor for its construction was Russia's Intertest, together with Italian engineering group Desmet Ballestra, which ARMZ described as the "world leader" in sulfuric acid plant engineering.

Verkhovtsev said that commissioning of the facility meant ARMZ could gradually increase its uranium production. "If in 2014 JSC Khiagda produced 442 tonnes of uranium, then in 2015 the volume of production of the finished product should reach 508 tonnes and by 2018 we plan to reach the design level of 1000 tonnes of uranium per year, and in the future to bring this up to 2000 tonnes per year," he said.

Researched and written
by World Nuclear News