North-Western Phosphorous Company, an Acron Group company, continued upgrading its equipment and workflow as a part of the second stage of the Oleniy Ruchey mine construction. Investments have already exceeded RUB 500 million (over USD 6 million).
The fourth mill was put into pilot operation at the grinding and flotation facility, joining three existing mills and increasing the section’s overall grinding capacity by 230 tonnes per hour.
To increase capacity and valuable component recovery, the Company commissioned a third tank flotation line and installed two additional column flotation machines in the cleaner flotation section.
The Company’s new service department will help maintain the new facilities and upgraded equipment. ‘Now that we have a service department for the crushing, grinding, and flotation facilities, we are following up with the filtration, drying, and loading sections of the factory’, said processing plant head Georgy Bersenev. ‘This will help us to move away from contracting repair services and perform all the work on our own’.
In 2021, the Oleniy Ruchey mine extracted 6.6 million tonnes of ore, one million tonnes more than in 2020, and increased apatite concentrate output to 1.25 million tonnes. By the end of 2022, planned output will reach 1.3 million tonnes.