One of Antam’s core strategies is to move downstream to produce higher added value processed products. The processed product currently produced by Antam in its nickel business line is ferronickel, which contains about 80% iron and 20% nickel. Antam’s ferronickel, which is differentiated as containing high or low carbon levels, is sold in the form of ingot (bars) or shots (pellets) to stainless steel producers mainly in Europe, Korea and Taiwan. About 70% of nickel is consumed for the production of stainless steel, while the rest is used for various industrial purposes such as batteries, electronics, aerospace applications and land based gas turbines

To produce ferronickel, saprolite nickel ore – which contain minimum 1.8% nickel and maximum 25% iron - were first treated to become calcine through a process that crushes, dries, heats and adds certain consumables to reduce acidity, using various machines.  The treated nickel ore are then fed into Antam’s smelters at a ratio of about 70-80 tonnes of nickel ore – depending on the grade of the nickel ore - for every tonne of nickel contained in ferronickel. This heat base phyrometallurgical technology is extremely energy intensive and requires an assured power source.

Currently Antam has three smelters (FeNi I, FeNi II and FeNi III) with a name plate capacity of 26,000 tons per annum of nickel in ferronickel. Antam generates power for the smelters from a 102MW diesel power plant which was built and is now operated by Wartsila of Finland. Antam’s smelters are located in Pomalaa, Southeast Sulawesi.

Antam’s ferronickel production costs have increased over the past a couple of years as fuel subsidies had been removed since 2005.  For the production of each ton of nickel in ferronickel, it is estimated that about 10,000 litres of diesel fuel will be consumed. As the cost of power is critical to the profitability of Antam’s nickel business line, Antam is seeking to lower cash costs by converting its source of energy from diesel fuel to other cheaper sources of energy such as hydro, gas or coal.


Currently Antam has not produced and extracted refined nickel from its limonite vast reserves as the grades are too low to be economically treated using the above mentioned technology. However, a relatively new process known as High Pressure Acid Leaching (HPAL), which is based on hydrometallurgy can potentially economically extract nickel from limonite. As the nickel price has experienced its historical high, it has been discovered by the Chinese that limonite could also be economically treated to produce nickel contained in pig iron (NCPI) containing about 4-5% nickel using blast furnaces. NCPI could then be used for the production of lower quality stainless steel. Antam is planning to jointly develop both the HPAL and NCPI projects in order to add value to Antam’s vast limonite reserves.

VIDEO OVERVIEW:
Please view this video to have a glimpse on how ferronickel is produced.