Since the beginning of this year, Jinchuan Group has accelerated its project construction, supporting and driving investment, and promoting industrial transformation and upgrading. In the first five months of this year, a total of 4.38 billion yuan (about $614.28 million) in fixed asset investment has been completed, with an increase of 67.2% year-on-year.
In recent years, the new energy vehicle industry has developed rapidly, leading to a significant increase in demand for nickel sulfate for power batteries. After the construction of two 35,000 tons of nickel sulfate projects, Jinchuan Group Nickel Salt Company had a production capacity of 105,000 tons of nickel sulfate. However there was still a gap for meeting market demand.
On April 18th, Jinchuan Group's 100,000 ton/year nickel sulfate solution project for power batteries successfully produced the first batch of qualified solutions, indicating that the project was ready for operation.
This project was a major construction project for the company in 2022, being developed in conjunction with the nickel smelting plant capacity expansion and the Lanzhou Jintong precursor capacity upgrading projects. It would be a production line that can produce 100,000 tons of nickel sulfate solution for the use in ternary precursor materials.
This project is also a key construction project for Jinchuan Group to create a new energy battery materials industry cluster and achieve the goals of the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-25).
"The project adopts the leading two-stage combined impurity removal process and two-stage countercurrent continuous leaching process. The processes have high leaching efficiency, excellent technical indicators and obvious competitive advantages. The generated wastewater and waste residue can be completely disposed of harmlessly and meet emission standards. After the project is completed, it can achieve an annual production capacity of 100,000 tons of nickel sulfate and provide 140 new job vacancies, enabling Jinchuan Group Nickel Salt Company to have a production capacity of 200,000 tons of nickel sulfate," said Han Junwen, deputy team leader of the project.
Furthermore, the construction of Jinchuan Group’s process technology upgrading project for copper smelting in Hexipu Industrial Park, Jinchang, is in full swing.
This project is one of the major construction projects of Gansu province during in the 14th Five-Year Plan period. It started construction in July 2022 and is expected to be completed and put into operation in December 2024.
"The project adopts the most advanced international three-in-one furnace technology, which features a short process, good environmental protection performance, strong adaptability to raw materials, and low processing costs. After completion, the project will be able to process 1.53 million tons of copper concentrates annually and produce 357,800 tons of anode plates. This will achieve automation, intelligentization, and informatization in the copper smelting industry, greatly improving labor productivity and reducing processing costs," said Lu Yingjie, the deputy team leader of the project.
Across from this project construction site, the 400,000 tons/year intelligent copper electrolysis project is also currently under construction.
This project started in March this year and is scheduled to be completed in October 2024.
"The project adopts the mainstream stainless steel permanent cathode electrolytic technology with low energy consumption and high electrolytic efficiency in the industry. It also utilizes intelligent electrolysis and intelligent tank loading platforms, achieving the intelligence and unmanned operation of electrolytic production under uninterrupted power supply conditions, reaching the advanced level in China. After the project is completed, it will realize the industrial linkage of 'pper concentrate-anode copper-cathode copper' in Hexipu Industrial Park, laying the foundation for the subsequent development of the park as a copper and chemical processing base, and enhancing its overall market competitiveness," said Tian Yabin, engineering technician for this project.
Going forward, Jinchuan Group will continue to promote the projects' construction, with the goal of building a world-class enterprise.
