In April, projects in Hexipu Industrial Park, Economic and Technological Development Zone, Jinchang, Gansu province, commenced construction, among which, Jinchuan’s copper smelting technology improvement project has made rapid progress.
The construction site of Jinchuan's copper smelting technology improvement project [Photo by Yang Yikai]
"At present, sections of the fundamental engineering works have already been completed, with the remainder currently under construction. The cumulative completed investment has reached about 150 million yuan (about $22 million)," said Lu Yingjie, deputy leader of the 300,000 ton copper pyrometallurgical project team of Jinchuan Group Copper Co., Ltd.
According to Lu, the project adopts the most advantageous "triple furnace" process of the industry, which has the features of short process, being environmental-friendly, its strong adaptability of raw materials, and low processing costs. Upon completion, this project is expected to complement the existing system of Jinchuan Group, solve the key issue of the copper synthesis furnace system's difficulty in handling high impurity raw materials containing precious metals, expand the scale of raw material procurement, and enable Jinchuan Group to take the lead in the northwest copper smelting field in terms of raw material procurement, production capacity, process technology, and technical and economic indicators.
"Compared to the previous copper smelting furnace, its advantage lies in its strong adaptability to raw materials. In other words, the previous copper smelting system could only deal with the fine raw materials, namely the concentrate. Now, this system can effectively handle high impurity ore, greatly reducing production costs and improving production efficiency," Lu added.
