Vale has awarded a contract to Whiting Equipment Canada to supply salt evaporators and potash crystallisers for its Potasio Rio Colorado (PRC) potash crystallisation plant in Mendoza Province, Argentina.
Construction of the new $150m-$300m PRC potash crystallisation plant is expected to start in December 2012, with operations commencing in January 2014.
The new potash plant, which is part of the $4.2bn Vale investment in PRC, will increase world production by 5% producing 2.4 million tons of potash a year (mtpa), with estimated potential phased-in increases to 4.2mtpa before 2020, according to Vale.
Whiting Equipment Canada is a subsidiary of Whiting Corporation, which builds and manufactures high-quality custom designed equipment for chemical and metallurgical industries, materials handling and railways, mass transit and other sectors across North America.
Whiting Equipment uses its Illinois-based sister company Swenson Technology's know-how to develop the process and engineer the processing equipment.
Using Swenson technology the brine is taken from the well field; the salt and potash are separated through fractional crystallisation.
The resulting salt and potash slurries are sent through dewatering equipment and then water is pumped back into the well to dissolve more potash from deep underground ore zones.
Whiting Equipment Canada has also supplied the first order for long-delivery alloy materials required to fabricate similar capacity evaporation / crystallisation equipment for Potash One's (K+S) Legacy Project potash solution mine in Southern Saskatchewan, Canada.
Whiting Equipment Canada said its most recent potash crystallisation plant equipment will begin start up this spring at Qinghai Salt Lake located in Western China.
