New Caledonia: Koniambo Nickel Project
The Koniambo Nickel project, a joint-venture partnership between Xstrata Nickel and Société Minière du Sud Pacifique (SMSP), is a greenfield pyrometallurgical facility in New Caledonia designed to develop one of the world’s largest and highest-grade nickel laterite deposits.
The project will process ore in a 60,000-tonne-per-annum ferronickel smelter. The smelter will use a standard pyrometallurgical process and a new technology to
confine dust.
Because of the scale of the project and its remote location,the metallurgical plant was constructed in 15 separate modules in Qingdao, China then shipped to site. The modules, which weigh up to 3,500 tonnes each and can be more than 50 metres tall, arrived in New Caledonia between October and December 2010.
Hatch, in joint venture with Technip, in an integrated Owner’s team is constructing a metallurgical plant; a 350-megawatt coal-fired power station; an ore preparation plant; an 11.5-kilometre ore conveyor; a port; and a construction camp for more than 4,800 people.
Hatch’s Systems & Process Control group was responsible for the project’s fully integrated systems and automation approach, which includes state-of-the-art communications infrastructure, operational systems, fibre optics and networks, security systems, all management systems, and all automation.
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