Ambatovy is one of the largest Nickel projects in the world, with an annual design capacity of 60,000 tonnes of nickel, 5,600 tonnes of cobalt and 190,000 tonnes of ammonium sulphate.
The project consists of an open-pit mining operation, ore preparation plant at the mine site, pipeline, process plant and refinery located a few kilometres from the Port of Toamasina. Ausenco completed a feasibility study and the front end engineering and design for the new import and export terminals in the Port of Toamasina.
The scope of work included an import facility for limestone, sulphur and coal products designed to accommodate up to 2.8 Mt/y destined for the process plant. The new infrastructure includes a new finger pier with two berths, four receiving hoppers for bulk discharge from ships, and a pipe conveyor to move the cargo through the existing port to a new railcar loadout for transport of the cargo to the plant. In addition to this, Ausenco completed the design of a new import and export petroleum terminal. This was part of the relocation of an existing petroleum products import and export pipeline manifold for off berth loading and unloading of tankers with 90% of the country’s fuel supply.
The railcar loadout facility is designed to operate simultaneously with ship unloading. The design of the materials handling facilities includes dust control equipment and containment of potentially contaminated run-off water. We also analyzed the metocean conditions of the facility and prepared a capital cost estimate.
Ausenco completed the detailed design and supported construction supervision for the project works.