Market Survey on Copper - Indian Bureau of Mines

The description of smelters of HCL, SIL, and Birla Copper is given below:
i) Hindustan copper Ltd. (HCL)
HCL has smelters and refineries at Khetri Nagar in Rajasthan and at
Ghatsila in Jharkhand and a continuous cast wire rod plant at Taloja in
Maharashtra. The total installed smelting capacity of the plants of HCL is about
51,500 tpy. The capacity of HCL’s Continuous Cast Copper Wire Rod Plant
(CCWR) at Taloja is 60,000 tpy.
(a) Khetri Copper Complex (KCC): This smelter with a capacity of
31,000 tpy is located at Khetri Nagar in Jhunjhunu district, Rajasthan. HCL has
taken up technological upgradation and debottlenecking scheme of KCC
Smelter leading to enhancements of the capacity from 31000 tpy to 45000 tpy.
Smelting takes place in Outokumpo Flash Furnace. Dried concentrate
together with hot air (400 o C) and silica is fed into the vertical reaction shaft of
the furnace via uptake shaft and pass on to a waste heat recovery boiler,
electrostatic precipitator and finally to acid plant/main stack. The slag (1.5-2%
Cu) after cooling is crushed in a jaw crusher and then recycled back to the
concentrator. The matte (45% Cu) after cooling is crushed in a jaw crusher and
then recycled back to the concentrator. The matte (45% Cu) is treated in two
long Pierce Smith Converters, one of which is standby. Air is supplied by
steam driven turbo-blowers and is oxygen enriched. The blister copper from
converter is refined in two drum type anode furnaces employing oil reduction
technology. The copper is cast into anodes on a casting wheel assaying 99.4%
Cu and 1, 400 ppm oxygen. Some steam generated (45 kg/cm 2 ) in waste heat
boiler is also used for cooling exhaust gases from flash furnace from a
temperature of 1,350 o C to 360 o C. Cyclones and electrostatic precipitators are
provided in both dryer and flash furnace exhaust gas circuits to recover copper
bearing dust for recycling. The cleaned flash furnace gases containing over 4%
SO2 is sent to acid plant. Oxygen enrichment of air in the converter has led to
effective control and generation/accumulation of secondaries.
Refining of anode copper to produce cathode copper is carried out by
using conventional electro-refining technology. HCL has modernised its
refining plant and has introduced different automatic process controls and
operation systems to ensure quality output on sustained basis.
The Khetri Copper Complex, in addition, has a sulphuric acid and a
phosphatic fertilizer plant with capacities of 1, 82,000 tonnes and 90,000
tonnes, respectively.
(b) Indian Copper Complex (ICC): It has a smelter of 20,500 tpy capacity
located at Ghatsila, dist. East Singhbhum, Jharkhand and has planned to
increase the capacity to 25,000 tpy. In addition to this the complex consists of a
8,400 tpy wire bar casting plant, a 54,000 tpy sulphuric acid plant and a brass
rolling mill. There is also a precious metal recovery plant for recovery of gold,
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