MOSCOW, April 22. /TASS/. The Norilsk Nickel Company (Nornickel) will cut sulfur dioxide emissions under the Sulfur Program by more than 730,000 tons in 2025, said Angela Orlova of the company's Ecology Department.
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.
"Our plan for 2025 is even more ambitious," she told a meeting at the Arctic Development Project Office (PORA). "We plan to cut sulfur dioxide emissions by more than 730,000 tons a year. Thus, as we reach the project capacity, we expect that the polar branch's reduction realistically will make 45% and more than 900,000 tons a year against the background year of 2017."
In 2024, sulfur dioxide emissions dropped by almost 400,000 tons, she added.
According to Georgy Fedoseev, deputy head of the Clean Air Project Office, in December, 2024, Rosprirodnadzor (the country's environment watchdog) confirmed the enterprise's 99% gas purification efficiency. Coordinator of PORA's Expert Council Alexander Vorotnikov pointed to the launched Sulfur Program's uniqueness. "The company has started to develop the Mokulayevsky limestone deposit (north-west of Talnakh) for neutralizing sulfuric acid. In addition to recycling sulfuric acid, they will produce a new building material - gypsum," the expert said.
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.