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LONDON (Alliance News) - Horizonte Minerals PLC Monday said it has achieved good drying and agglomeration performance over three sets of test conditions on the rotary kiln electric furnace pilot plant at its Araguaia nickel project in Brazil.
The minerals company said it has completed commissioning of the dryer and agglomerator module ahead of the launch of the plant which it is targeting for April. The tests produced well agglomerated material obtained with low dust generation while meeting the target moisture level in the dryer product, it said.
The tests also showed "excellent calcination" and no evidence of sticking or sintering up to discharge temperatures of 1,000 degrees centigrade.
The company willl be delivering a further 200 tonnes of bulk sample of Araguaia ore to pilot facility in April to provide feed for the next stage of testing a continuous 20 day pilot plant metallurgical campaign. The aim is to produce ferronickel to commercial specification on a continual basis, it said.
Horizonte Minerals shares were up 5.2% at 2.89 pence Monday morning.
By Steve McGrath; stevemcgrath@alliancenews.com; @stevemcgrath1
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