The ramping up of Anaconda Nickel’s 60%-owned Murrin Murrin laterite nickel-cobalt project in Western Australia is continuing on schedule, the company has said. Anaconda said the operation was “well prepared” for the last scheduled shutdown, planned for 21 September – 13 October, before the completion of production ramp-up to design capacity. Murrin Murrin has been dogged by operational problems since it was commissioned, and the current plan to reach full design output of 45,000mt per year of nickel and 3500mt per year of cobalt by June 2002 is over two years behind the original schedule. The major tasks to be completed during the scheduled shutdown will be rectification work on the acid plant and installation of replacement pre-heaters on the third autoclave train.
