NORILSK, February 24. /TASS/. The verification of emissions cut at the Nadezhda Metallurgical Plant in Norilsk is due in 2025, after the implementation there of the Sulfur Program environmental project, Alexander Kozlov, Russia's Minister of Natural Resources and Ecology told reporters.
In October 2023, the city-forming company Norilsk Nickel (Nornickel) launched the first stage of its flagship Sulfur Program at the Nadezhda Metallurgical Plant in Norilsk. In September, the company started comprehensive tests of the program's second line. Over the past year, 390,000 tons of sulfur dioxide have been disposed of during the commissioning and testing of the sulfuric acid production technology.
"Specialists of Rosprirodnazor (Russia's environmental watchdog) have evaluated the equipment, confirmed its effectiveness, and our task for 2025, after the equipment is installed on the pipe, is to verify that a few thousand tons, which is almost 400,000 tons of sulfur dioxide, are no longer released into the air. The most important task now is to verify results of the work done by Norilsk Nickel," the minister said.
The company told TASS that automatic monitoring systems would be installed at the plant's emission sources to assess the emissions' intensity. According to Norilsk Nickel's Vice President Nikolay Utkin, that system offers automatic monitoring of emissions.
About the Sulfur Program
The Sulfur Program's technologies are assumed to capture at least 99% of sulfur dioxide at the main smelting units, where they will be used, and they take into account peculiarities of the Norilsk Industrial District's' ore base, the used pyrometallurgical processes, as well Norilsk's logistical limitations (a lack of external railway, a limited navigation period on the Yenisei River, the inter-navigation period where only air traffic is available, and the Northern Sea Route's logistics). Sulfuric acid from sulfur dioxide will be further neutralized by limestone to produce gypsum.
The Nadezhda Metallurgical Plant is the youngest and most high-tech facility of the company's Norilsk Division. The plant's first stage was commissioned in 1979, the second - in 1981. The company processes nickel-pyrrhotite concentrate from the Talnakh Processing Plant, nickel concentrate from the Norilsk Processing Plant, metal-containing product from the Talnakh Processing Plant, and nickel slag from the Copper Plant.