Over the Pacific Ocean echoes the splendid news on the successful win-win cooperation between China Nerin Engineering Co., Ltd. (“NERIN”) and Corporación Nacional del Cobre de Chile (“Codelco”). At the end of May, a kick-off meeting was convened with great success in Santiago, capital of Chile, for the pre-feasibility study of Codelco’s new copper smelter undertaken by NERIN, which will handle 1.2 million tons of copper concentrates per year in the north of Chile. At the meeting, the conditions of construction, the scope and contents of work, the schedule, the design criteria and such of the project were discussed and settled. Meanwhile, the implementation standards and principles in selection of various processes and technologies were also determined. After the KOM, the participants of both parties made a joint visit to the Chuquicamata smelter and refinery, and the site of the proposed project.

At the KOM, Mr. Wu Runhua, President of NERIN, had cordial talks with Mr. Gerhard Von Borries Harms, Vice President of Codelco in charge of project execution, and Mr. Alejandro Rivera Stambuk, CFO of Codelco. The parties amicably exchanged views on the front-end work of the said ongoing copper smelting project and its future financing, construction and operation, etc. 

Participants of the meeting include Ms. Yao Suping, Chief Engineer, Mr. Tang Zunqiu, Vice Chief Engineer and Senior Project Manager, Dr. Xu Shuang, Senior Overseas Business Manager from NERIN together with the directors in charge of NERIN’s Chile Agency, Metallurgy Business Unit and Chemical Engineering Business Unit. 

What makes NERIN stand out among so many powerful competitors and win the trust of Codelco? The answer is in what Mr. Gerhard Von Borries Harms says: “NERIN is a globally influential engineering company that dedicates itself to copper smelting industry, and it has successfully designed and built various first-class copper smelters both in China and out of China. It is a company worth of respect and trust. This copper smelting project is the virgin official cooperation between Codelco and a Chinese engineering company. We believe that with NERIN it will be crowned with complete consummation, and will definitely open a new page of bilateral comprehensive cooperation.”

After the KOM, Mr. Wu Runhua, Ms. Yao Suping and Mr. Tang Zunqiu received the  interview by local journalists. “The total accumulative annual capacity of the copper smelters designed and built by NERIN in and outside China has reached over 5 million tons, which allows NERIN to be the engineering consulting company that designs and builds the most copper smelting projects worldwide. NERIN should not and will not be absent from the new round of engineering construction of Chilean copper smelting industry. In fact, concluding the contract with Codelco is not a coincident. As early as 2009 NERIN turned its strategic foresight of long-term development in the copper market in Chile by setting up its Chile Agency for providing technical services, accumulating experience and building brand images.”, as Mr. Wu says.

In recent years, NERIN has been marching stably and persistently to its globalization. Mr. Wu illustrated “In October 2015, Philippine Associated Smelting and Refinery Corporation (PASAR) Expansion Project under Glencore, with NERIN as the EPC contractor, commissioned successfully at the first trial. It is a very challenging modernization project to upgrade an old copper smelter that has been running for more than 30 years from 150kt/a to 300kt/a. We have trials and difficulties, but the result has fully proved our remarkable technical advantages and capability of being an independent contractor for big international EPC projects. Nowadays overseas business has accounted for 1/3 in NERIN and this figure is still rising. There is no doubt the Chile will be our key market outside China. This copper smelting project for Codelco will once again be a milestone for our full participation in global competition for sure.”

When asked about the technical advantages on copper smelting NERIN takes pride in, Ms. Yao Suping said “As an engineering consulting company good at copper smelting projects, NERIN has a firm grasp of the knowledge of various modern copper smelting processes, and is capable of collaborating with all proprietary technology owners without barrier based on our rich experience. We can also optimize and update technologies to acquire the best engineering applications of different copper smelting processes.”

Straight after that, Ms. Yao added “NERIN has presented obvious advantages on flash smelting and flash converting technologies, and achieved top 1 in the worldwide flash copper smelting projects over the years. At present China is the place where almost all kinds of modern copper smelting processes converge, and NERIN has designs of different furnaces. Right at this moment you can find bath smelting processes like top blowing, side blowing and bottom blowing under execution. In Chalco’s new 400kt/a cooper smelting project NERIN is executing now, the most optimized Double Flash process is applied. Thanks to deep understanding and substantial grasp of data from practical operation, NERIN is capable of providing objective and impartial tradeoff studies of different process solutions. It’s worth saying that through constant design optimization and technological summary, NERIN keeps slimming down unit investment and operation cost of its copper smelting projects, which is essentially critical to upgrade Codelco’s competitiveness in the whole world.”

For the biggest challenge for NERIN to undertake Codelco’s copper smelting project, Mr. Tang Zunqiu said “As an independent consultant, NERIN will conduct objective and impartial comparisons and evaluations on various processes considering the characteristics of this project such as high arsenic contents in raw materials and high sea level of the project location. The biggest challenge remains with NERIN in precisely seizing Codelco’s strategic requirements by choosing the optimal solution to comply with Chilean construction codes, state-of-art technologies, the most environmentally-friendly standards, low CAPEX and OPEX and minimal risks.”

During the visit in Chile, Wu Runhua and his delegation were invited to visit ENAMI, where they had a profound discussion with the top management of ENAMI on the development trends of copper smelting technologies, and exchanged ideas of NERIN’s participation in ENAMI’s copper smelting project.

Wu Runhua and his delegation also visited the Chilean Branch of Anglo American Plc. The two sides talked out technical issues such as copper smelting technologies and environment protection. “I sincerely hope that both companies will enhance mutual understanding and trust by intensifying technical exchanges at multiple levels and in diversified areas to promote further bilateral cooperation in a substantial way.” said Mr. Pedro Reyes, President of the Branch. 

Meeting with Codelco

Shared Moment

Visit at Chuquicamata Smelter