Name and Location
Iron-from-waste prototype project, Limpopo, South Africa.

Client
Iron Mineral Beneficiation Services (IMBS), which includes Jonah Capital, with 40%, and OAO Severstal of Russia, with 33%, is in partnership with South Africa’s State-owned Industrial Development Corporation and  is receiving strong support from the Limpopo government.

Project Description
The project involves the construction of a 50 000 t/y demonstration facility in Phalaborwa to convert iron-ore fines into metallic briquettes for use as a scrap supplement in electric steelmaking.

The facility will use IMBS’s patented Finesmelt technology. To produce the cold-briquetted metallic iron the technology has been licensed to International Iron Beneficiation Group (IIBG), which will deploy it worldwide and pay royalties to IMBS, which will operate the iron-making plants with IIBG, an OAO Severstal subsidiary.

The technology enables the conversion of previously stockpiled fine and ultrafine waste material into a saleable product.

The next stage of the project at Palabora Mining Company is the construction of two 500 000 t/y capacity plants.

Value
The demonstration project will involve an investment of R120-million and could be the precursor to a larger R800-million project to produce 500 000 t/y of the briquettes.

Duration
The plant is expected to be operational in the first half of 2013.

Latest Developments
Commercialisation of the Finesmelt technology, which uses a large stockpile of iron-bearing magnetite material on surface at Palabora Mining, in Limpopo, appears imminent.

The technology is expected to be commissioned his month.

The technology to produce the cold-briquetted metallic iron has access to 240-million surface tons of 58%-iron magnetite, which has accumulated at Palabora, woing to decades of mining.

The process self-generates sufficient energy to run the operation, making it possible to go to remote locations, bring thermal coal in and take iron out.

The IMBS technology is tailored to supply a ferrous scrap supplement to the growing electric arc furnace steelmaking market.

IMBS's five-year vision is to produce one-million tons of metallic iron a year in South Africa, with another million tons planned thereafter and, internationally, to have a two-million-ton-a-year plant in operation, increasing  to ten-million tons a year.

“From the South African perspective, once we have a lot of metallic iron available, we can base an entire steel industry on it,” says Industrial Development Corporation mining and beneficiation industry champion Dave Cousins.

“We can create massive employment downstream from that and, instead of selling iron-ore, we can sell a highly valuable product.”

Key Contracts and Suppliers
None stated.

On Budget and on Time?
On budget and on track to produce metallic iron next year.

Contact Details for Project Information
IMBS, tel +27 11 996 4920, fax +27 11 658 1286 or email jenny@imbsworld.com.