Ferrobamba has awarded a contract to Italian technology company Tenova for development of the Aymaraes iron ore project in Aymaraes province, southern Peru. Ferrobamba is a private minerals development company headquartered in Lima. Aymaraes project development will be based on Tenova’s HYL Micro Module technology, with Tenova overseeing technological design and providing the equipment to develop and build a 500,000-mt/y pelletization plant and a 250,000-mt/y high-carbon direct reduced iron (DRI) plant.
“The Micro Module DRI plant is a proven technology that allows for high-carbon DRI production with a simple and compact design, providing benefits that include low maintenance costs, minimum manpower requirements, more affordable capital expenditures and low operating costs,” Angelo Manenti, Tenova vice president of North America business development, said. “Moreover, the Micro Module, as with any other Energiron DR plant, complies with the strictest environmental regulations. It has been permitted twice already in the USA, as well as in other regions of the world.”
Iron ores will be crushed, pelletized and processed to direct reduction grade pellets. The pellets will be fed into a Tenova HYL Micro Module DRI plant, where they will be reduced to metallic iron. The DRI produced will be of the highest quality available, with carbon content of around 4%, and can easily be substituted for pig iron or high-quality scrap for use in electric steel-making operations to produce high-grade steel.
“The Tenova HYL Micro Module will allow our company to add significant value to our iron ore deposit in Aymaraes, producing high-carbon DRI with proven technology used since 2010 by Emirates Steel. The Micro Module uses the same technology applied in Nucor’s Louisiana plant but is one-tenth the size and allows junior mining companies like ours to enter the DRI production market with a limited capital investment,” Ferrobamba CEO Alfonso Navarro said. “Our company will be in a position to produce a premium-quality DRI that is not currently available in the region.”
A conceptual study of the Aymaraes project postulates production of a total of 207.2 million mt of dry iron ore concentrate grading 68% iron over a mine life of 13 years.
