Talvivaara Nickel Mine - from a project to a mine and beyond

摘要

The first commercial application of bioleaching in Europe is the Talvivaara Sotkamo Mine in Finland. The ore contains low grade sulphide minerals. Utilization of the deposit has been extensively studied for over 20 years. Bioheapleaching technology was chosen for the extraction of nickel from the ore based on its favorable capital, operational costs and good performance data obtained in a large on-site pilot trial. Building of the industrial scale plant was started in 2007 and metals recovery started in 2008. In full production the annual nickel production will be approximately 50,000tpa. In addition, the mine will also produce zinc, copper and cobalt. Talvivaara will start to recover uranium from the PLS solution. A novel solvent extraction process will be used to extract uranium for the yellowcake production. An update of the existing operation, uranium extraction and the plans for the production expansion and upgrading beyond the 50,000tpa will be discussed.