North-Western Phosphorous Company Celebrates its 15th Anniversary on 12 August

North-Western Phosphorous Company, Acron Group’s major feedstock asset, was established on 12 August 2005 to develop the Oleniy Ruchey apatite-nepheline ore deposit. Construction of mining infrastructure started in late 2008. In 2012, NWPC commissioned the Oleniy Ruchey open-pit mine and completed the first stage of the processing plant and infrastructure. In June 2013, NWPC started shipping apatite concentrate to both of Acron Group's Russia-based chemical production facilities and to third-party customers. In 2014, the Company commissioned the main and auxiliary facilities at the Oleniy Ruchey production site: an assembly and storage area, a warehouse for equipment and materials, filling stations, administrative buildings, a boiler house, fuel oil storage, and other facilities. In early 2018, NWPC commissioned a new 50-km railway line connecting the mine site with the main rail lines. Today the Company is extracting ore at the Oleniy Ruchey mine by both open-pit and underground methods, producing high-quality apatite concentrate that provides all the phosphate feedstock required by the Group’s Russian facilities. The mine’s current capacity is 1.2 million tonnes of apatite concentrate per year, but there are plans to increase this to 2 million tonnes per year. Investments in the project totalled USD 1.1 billion.