Moscow, 9 August 2011, EuroChem announces today that its Phosphorit subsidiary is proceeding with the upgrade of its wet-process phosphoric acid facility as it migrates from a dehydrate to hemihydrate process. The installation of a specially designed conveyor for the calcium sulfate by-product is expected to allow Phosphorit to double the capacity of the #4 production line to 220 thousand tonnes of phosphoric acid per year (100% P2O5).

As opposed to dehydrated gypsum, which can remain in a friable state for years, calcium sulfate hemihydrate, or gypsum plaster, will set and harden, leading to certain transportation constraints. As a result, a calcium sulfate hemihydrate conveyor system was especially developed for the #4 production line.

The initial start-up and trial run of the conveyor was performed last week with dehydrated gypsum. The tests yielded positive results and the overall process synchronization, from loading, rinsing, and shipping is currently being developed.

The #4 production line will migrate to the hemihydrate process following the commissioning of a band vacuum filter, which is currently being assembled by a team of specialists from Kingisepp-RemStroiService under the supervision of British equipment adjusters.