Stef van der Merwe The advanced dry Foskor Extension 8 is set to
operate in parallel with the existing wet mill.
The initial 15% saving will be based solely on the dry milling of
coarser pyroxenite fractions and savings of 35% must thus await
possible partial replacement of the old wet flotation
circuit.
Tonnage-for-tonnage, Extension 8 occupies only a quarter of the
area of the old wet plant, which treats 25 million tons of ore a
year in four crushing and milling steps (after primary crushing),
compared to the 5,5-million-tons-a-year which willdonedeal used stone crushers in ireland ie be processed in
only two steps in the new extension, with no tertiary crushing or
milling.
Theoretically, if well-maintained, the old mill could be operated
for another 100 years. GM operations Stef van der Merwe reports
that Foskor lands prices of ore handling plant in bspphosphate rock at the port of Richards Bay at a
price which is below imports to the same point, by subsidiary
Indian Ocean Fertilizer (IOF), which, however, continues to import
from Togo, even though Foskor produces sufficient rock for
IOF’s total requirement.
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Foskor prefers to export a portion of its phosphate rock with
subsidiary IOF then importing to fill the gap.
IOF’s billion-rand extension, already out of its starting
blocks, is to be completed in 2001, when Foskor will supply an
additional 800 000 t/y cemant plant drawing silo and kilnto it, taking total intake to 1,8 million
t/y from the present million tons.
The biggest consumer of IOF’s phosphoric acid and diammonium
phosphate (DAP) is the fertiliser industry and eventually buyers of
nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, NPKs.
Thstone crusher machine for sale in ethiopiaere are also several phosphoric acid niche markets in foods for
animals, sodium tripolyphosphate for washing powders and in fizzy
drinks.
“Just look at a Coke and you’ll see phos acid listed on
the can,” Van der Merwe reminds, adding though that
food-quality phosphoric acid requires special additional
refining.
Ninety per cent of Foskor-IOF production is exported and 10% sold
domestically.
Few operations sell only rock, and most, as with Foskor-IOF, are
vertically integrated. While the phosphate market tends to be
fairly stable, the phosphoric acid and DAP markets are
cyclical.
World phosphate reserves and the 146-million t/y production are
widely spread, South Africa producing a mere 2,1% of the
total.
International trade of phosphate rock is currently 32-million t/y,
of which Foskor supplies 2,6%.
The relatively small scale of Foskor’s operations, coupled to
South Africa’s high transport costs, forces the company to
offset competitive disadvantages through its high quality in terms
of bone phosphate of lime and phosphorus and oxygen content.