Nickel Distribution Articles Summary

At present, the proven nickel reserves in the world are about 160 million tons, of which about 30% are sulfide ore, and about 70% are lateritic nickel ore. Nickel sulphide is produced in the same ultrabasic rock zone as lateritic nickel, but it is not symbiotically vertical in the same deposit. That is, unlike the copper deposits, copper sulphides in the secondary enrichment zone usually have primary vulcanization underneath. Copper mine. Due to the good quality of nickel sulphide ore resources and mature technology, about 60% of nickel output is derived from nickel sulphide ore. Due to the long-term exploitation of nickel sulphide ore, there has been no major breakthrough in the exploration of new nickel sulphide mineral resources in the past 20 years. A sharp decline. Calculated with an annual output of 1.2 million tons of nickel, it is equivalent to 2 years of mining a Canadian nickel mine in the Voich Bay (the only large deposit discovered in the last 20 years, the world's fifth largest nickel sulfide ore), 5 years after mining Jinchuan Nickel Mine (the world's third largest nickel sulfide mine). Therefore, at present, the resources of global nickel sulphide mineral resources are already in crisis and there are several conventional nickel sulphide ore mines (Sudbury, Canada, Norellsk, Russia, Kambolda, Australia, Jinchuan, South Africa, and South Africa. The mining depth of Tengsburg, etc. is deepening, making it more difficult to mine. To this end, the global nickel industry will focus its resource development on the reserves of lateritic nickel ore resources.

The lateritic nickel ore resources are surface weathering crust deposits formed by weathering-leaching-deposition of nickel sulphide ore bodies. The lateritic nickel deposits in the world are located in tropical countries within 30 degrees north and south of the equator, and are concentrated in the tropical-subtropical regions of the circum-Pacific Ocean. The regions are mainly: Cuba and Brazil in the Americas; Indonesia and the Philippines in Southeast Asia; Australia, New Caledonia and Papua New Guinea in Oceania.

Seventy percent of China's nickel ore reserves are concentrated in Gansu, followed by Xinjiang, Yunnan, Jilin, Sichuan, Shaanxi, and Qinghai and Hubei provinces. The combined reserves account for 27% of the country's total nickel reserves. The type of nickel ore in China is mainly copper sulfide nickel ore and laterite nickel ore. China's laterite nickel ore is mainly imported from the Philippines. Since 1970, Japan and the Philippines have started cooperation to establish a joint-venture mining company to extract more than 2% nickel-bearing high-grade nickel ore, and sent it back to Nippon Steel and Sumitomo Corporation for smelting, resulting in the monopolization of high-grade nickel ore in the Philippines by Japanese companies. However, our country can only import low-grade nickel ore with nickel content between 0.9% and 1.1%.

China’s neighboring countries have 11.25 million tons of nickel ore reserves, which are only distributed in a few countries, including Russia (6.6 million tons), Indonesia (3.2 million tons), the Philippines (410,000 tons), Myanmar (92 tons), and Vietnam (120,000 yuan). t), but account for a large proportion of the world's total reserves, accounting for about 23%. The laterite nickel ore is mainly distributed in Indonesia, the Philippines and Myanmar. The nickel resources in Indonesia are mainly nickel-rich laterites in the weathering crust of basic and ultrabasic rock masses. They are distributed in the eastern part of the archipelago. The ore belts can be traced from Central Sulawesi to Halmahura, Obi, and the Waieglio Islands. In addition, as well as the Tannamela region of the Birdhead Peninsula in Irian Jaya, due to the widespread distribution of the weathering crusts of Indonesia's ultramafic rock belts, its lateritic nickel-cobalt ore deposits have good prospects for prospecting. The Philippines is also dominated by red nickel, which is mainly distributed on the island of Nonok. There are also red clay-type nickel silicate deposits in Myanmar, which are controlled by the ultramafic rock belts of the Indian-Burmese mountain range and are distributed on the western margin of the Central Basin. Russia's nickel resources are distributed in the Norilsk copper-nickel sulfide ore deposit on the northwestern edge of the Siberian platform. Vietnam Nickel is a copper-nickel sulphide type and is distributed in the northwest. It is known as the Ban Fuku deposit in the Shingo province. It is present in the Tabu Ophiolite belt in the Heishui River Rift and has a proven reserve of 120,000 tons.

Reasons for the Development of World Laterite-type Nickel Deposits
With the economic development of the world in the 1990s, the demand for stainless steel, which accounts for 65% of nickel use, has grown steadily. Nickel demand has increased at an average annual rate of more than 4% for the first five years. It is predicted that the growth rate will be 3.5% to 4% over the next five to 10 years, of which Asia The nickel demand growth rate will be 7%. However, the nickel sulfide resources available for the recent development in the world, except for the Voisey bay nickel mine in Canada, are almost invisible. The world has so far seized about 70 million tons of nickel metal resources. Among them, about 30 million tons of nickel sulfide, accounting for 42%. The rest are nickel laterites. The advantages of developing and utilizing lateritic nickel are:

First, there are abundant resources for laterite-type nickel, with 41 million tons of nickel metal globally and low exploration costs.

Second, the cost of mining is extremely low.

Third, the metallurgical process has matured. The pyrometallurgical iron-nickel technology of laterite-type nickel ore has matured, and pressure acid leaching technology has matured. The technology began in the 1950s and was first used in Cuba's Moa Bay mine, which is called AMAX® PAL technology. Since then, in the 1970s, Australia’s QNI Corporation has established Yabula Nickel Plants and sour leaching of lateritic nickel mines in New Caledonia, Indonesia and Queensland, Australia. The Canadian Sherritt Corporation's technology for the wet treatment of laterite-type nickel ore has been recognized.

Fourth, laterite-type nickel ore can produce intermediate products such as nickel oxide, sulfur nickel, and iron nickel, among which sulfur nickel and nickel oxide can be used by nickel refineries to solve the problem of insufficient nickel sulfide raw materials. As for iron and nickel, it is more convenient for the production of stainless steel and lower production costs. For example, Indonesia's Antam used its domestic laterite-type nickel ore, and the cost of producing iron and nickel had dropped to US$1.4/lb Ni last year (1 pound = 0.453 kg - editor's note). The annual output was nearly 10,000 tons of nickel.

Fifth, the world's laterite resources are mainly distributed in the near equatorial regions, and most of them are close to the coast for easy transportation.

Therefore, although the investment in laterite-based nickel plants is relatively large, the annual production capacity of nickel per pound usually needs 9-11 US dollars. However, due to the above advantages, if the process is reasonable and well-managed, the production cost of nickel per pound may be lower than that of sulfuration. nickel. Take Western Australia Mining Corporation (WMC), Australia’s largest nickel company, for example, the total cost per pound of nickel (including investment amortization) has fallen from US$3.0 in 1996 to US$2.0 (in 2000). The later-developed, advanced-management laterite-type nickel ore can also reach this level. In particular, the detailed feasibility study report of laterite nickel-ore pressure acid leaching technology project in recent years, taking into account the value of cobalt, the production cost of nickel per pound is below US$1.4. Therefore, the technical center for the development and utilization of laterite-type nickel ore has been converted from the pyrometallurgical process to wet-process acid-leaching metals.

With the investment and construction of three laterite-type nickel plants in Western Australia in recent years, people have a new understanding of the use properties and types of lateritic nickel ore resources, which can now be divided into two categories: One is called “wet type”. ”, mainly distributed in the near equatorial regions, such as New Caledonia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea and the Caribbean; the other is called “dry type”, mainly distributed in the southern hemisphere continent farther from the equator. Western Australia is represented. In addition to Western Australia, laterite-type nickel ore resources are also distributed in East Australia. They are produced in the eastern part of Queensland in eastern Australia and in the central and western part of New South Wales. They have detected 3 million tons of nickel metal, totaling 15 million tons in Australia. Nickel metal content. Since the beginning of 1999, three high-pressure acid leaching nickel plants have started production in Western Australia. The three plants are Cawse, Bulong and Murrin Murrin. After completion, the basic processes used in these three plants are high pressure acid leaching HPAL (High Pressure Acid Leach), but the process in the latter half is different. The Coss Nickel Plant produces nickel hydroxide intermediates, which are then electrolyzed to produce nickel cathodes and cobalt sulfides. The process at the Blooms plant directly produces nickel and cobalt metal without going through the nickel hydroxide intermediate product process. Molin Moline is similar to the on-site process at the Moy Bay Nickel Plant in Cuba and follows the Sherritt Technology in Canada to produce mixed nickel sulphide/cobalt intermediates before being electrorefined to produce nickel metal and drills.

Another batch of new nickel-ore PAL nickel plant construction and expansion projects in the world has begun.

The development trend is very obvious and can be summarized as:
(1) Due to the significant reduction of nickel sulfide available for development, the increase in nickel production in the world in the next decade will mainly come from the development of lateritic nickel ore resources, while the development trend of lateritic nickel ore resources, the development trend of PAL technology is greater than that of iron and nickel. technology;

(2) The investment cost of the PAL wet technology and the laterite nickel ore pyrometallurgical smelter is roughly the same, ie the annual production capacity is 8-12 US dollars per pound of nickel. However, in the next round of construction or expansion of the nickel plant of PAL technology, its infrastructure investment will drop significantly;

(3) The production cost of the PAL process is generally lower than the iron-nickel process, and the PAL process consumes significantly less energy than the iron-nickel process. Therefore, economically, the PAL technology approach will show its superiority;

(4) As the “wet type” laterite mineral resources have the advantages of higher grade, less clay, and easy handling, compared with the “dry” laterite mineral resources, the “wet type” resources development project has more advantages in development and utilization.
(5) PAL technology of laterite-type nickel ore can produce intermediate products on site: nickel hydroxide or sulfur nickel, which can provide the expansion of existing nickel refineries or solve the problem of insufficient supply, which is currently a lot of Western Nickel's business direction. This business idea is worth learning from our country.

Nickel Distribution in 2007

There are nearly a hundred places of origin. It is mainly in Hongqiling and Yebaisong in Jilin Province, Jinchuan in Gansu Province, Kalatongke and Huangshan in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Lengshuijing and Yangping in Sichuan Province, and Baimazhai and Mojiang in Yunnan Province.

There are more than 10 nickel mines mined in China, among which are Jinchuan Nickel Mine in Gansu Province, Hongqiling Nickel Mine in Jilin Province, Kalatongke Copper Nickel Mine in Xinjiang, and Baimazhai Copper and Nickel Mine in Yunnan Province. In 1995, China produced 47,800 tons of nickel concentrate (containing nickel) and nickel metal 38,900 tons. Jinchuan Nonferrous Metals Co., Ltd. is the largest producer of nickel in China. In 1995, it produced 33024 tons of nickel, 14 725 tons of copper, 390 tons of cobalt, and 528 kg of precious metals.

Distribution of nickel ore reserves in China in 2008

The distribution of nickel in China is mainly in the northwest, southwest, and northeast, and its proportion of retained reserves in the country's total reserves is 76.8%, 12.1%, and 4.9%, respectively. In terms of provinces (regions), Gansu has the largest reserves, accounting for 62% of the country's total nickel reserves, followed by Xinjiang (11.6%), Yunnan (8.9%), Jilin (4.4%), Hubei (3.4%) and Sichuan ( 3.3%).
Figure 3.10.2 and Table 3.10.3 show the major nickel deposits in China and their development and utilization.