A new Project by CVMR ® starting January 2025 in the beautiful and fast-growing country of Albania.
CVMR ® (Albania), (hereinafter “CVMR ®”) has commenced the establishment of a major nickel refinery in central Albania at Qafë Thanesë, Prrenjas. The company has acquired a 50-acre property designated as Free Industrial Zone, to build the first phase of two World Class nickel and iron refineries in modular form, based on CVMR ®’s proprietary vapour metallurgy, with the ability to expand the first phase of the operation three folds. The first phase will produce 10,000 tons per annum of high purity nickel and iron powders and nano powders.
This would not have been possible without the direct encouragement, advice and readiness to expedite the process by the Right Honorable Prime Minister Edi Rama and the Honorable Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Infrastructure and Energy Belinda Balluku.
The Mayors of Pogradec, Ilir Xhakolli and Mayor of Prrenjas Nuri Belba helped in facilitated the acquisition of the land and arrangements for the delivery of the raw ore to the plant’s location. Dr. Shkelqim Daja, Dean of the Faculty of Geology and Mining of the Polytechnic University of Tirana and Ms. Ledi Moisiu Director of Raw Materials Albania, pledged cooperation with CVMR ® in establish a Centre of Excellence for training of engineers and research and development in related areas within their scope. The new R&D facilities will be built by CVMR ®.
CVMR ®’s nickel and iron refineries and nickel and iron powder manufacturing project will commence by breaking ground and starting construction in January 2025. CVMR plans to commission the plants and start production in late 2026.
CVMR ® plants in Albania will produce nickel and iron products, such as nickel powders, nano-powders, complex net shapes for use in the defense and aerospace industries, super alloys, nickel and iron powders specifically used in 3D printing and manufacture of car parts, computer parts, electronic parts, molds and tools, EV battery co mponents, and medical instruments. The iron content in addition to the above-mentioned applications can be used in pharmaceutical and food additives industries.
This project would allow Albania to avoid being at the mercy of the nickel and iron commodity markets and their cyclical price fluctuations. The refined nickel and iron products’ pricing will be based on the market demand in different segments of the manufacturing and consumer markets. The metal powders, net shapes and super alloy prices have kept climbing in the past 20 years. Bloomberg, JP Morgan, and US Department of Energy forecast the price of nickel powder and iron nano-powders to increase at an average pace of 6% to 9% per annum depending on the morphology of the powders being demanded by different industries. In case of 3D printing the pace of growth in that market will be 11% per annum in Europe, North America, and India. Nickel is considered a critical, strategic metal by the US government and EU.
CVMR ® builds and operates its plants without any pollution of the air, water, or soil. The entire plant will be built on a modular system, capable of growing in capacity as the market demands. The production units will be flexible enough that by changing a few parameters, one could switch their output from one product to another.
CVMR ®’s refining/manufacturing process produces pure metal products with very high degree of purity. All such output, inevitably attract highly valued, sophisticated industries with high paying industrial jobs as secondary industries that CVMR ®’s products can feed into, enhancing the country’s economy far beyond the value added to the mined and recycled metals. It creates an export market for value added products and establishes long-term professional jobs in the proximity of CVMR ®’s refining plant, help expand many industries and create new ones.
The advantages CVMR ® operations bring to a country, such as high paying jobs, the manufacture of high value finished products, the technical training and employment of high paying professional engineers and technicians, as well as the creation of many high-tech secondary industries, based on the product output from the CVMR ®’s carbonyl plants, would be quite substantial in scope, economic impact, and generation of a broad base of income.
New metal powder products that can be tailored for individual applications are in constant demand. As the range of uses for powder metallurgy, hard metal alloys (super alloys) and electronic materials expands, customer requirements are causing materials companies to come up with new products that have the necessary properties. Iron powders can bring a number of benefits to these and other industries. It can improve the mechanical and fatigue properties of steel alloys, enhance conductivity and magnetic properties of electronic materials, act as a binder for holding together particulate materials and be used in filtration components in the form of high porosity products. These applications rely on high purity fine nickel and iron powders and other special nickel and iron forms being adapted to meet specific materials needs.
CVMR ® used its piloting facility in Toronto to conduct the Piloting and Feasibility Study for this project. The piloting and Feasibility Study are the necessary components of the project to establish the mass balance, energy balance, capital, and operational costs of the project with a high degree of accuracy.
CVMR ® Corporation
CVMR ® is the leader in the metal refining and manufacturing of metal powders, super alloys, metal 3D printing feed materials and metal parts of high value.
Over the past 40 years, CVMR ® has developed a unique series of processes and technologies for refining all Transition Metals from which it manufactures various metal products of high purity and high value. CVMR ®’s technology is based on a proven method that was invented some 135 years ago, and which supplies about 25% of world’s nickel and about 15% of iron consumed worldwide.
CVMR ®’s processes and technologies are the state of the art in this field, proprietary, and currently in use in Canada, USA, China, India, and Russia. BASF of Germany, Norilsk of Russia, and Vale/Inco of Canada, also use similar processes in refining their nickel and iron, but their systems use very high pressure, consume substantial energy, require high-grade ore, and cannot refine various metals from the same ore compound in the same throughput as CVMR ® does.
CVMR ® refines various metals by chemically vaporizing them at low pressure and relatively low temperatures. It simultaneously manufactures various metal powders and metal parts, as part of the same process, for the end user markets. The process does not melt the metals as is done in the usual smelting processes (Pyrometallurgy), it does not used acids as in pressure acid leaching (Hydrometallurgy). CVMR ® plants are pollution free and completely neutral to the environment. They create no air, water, or soil pollution of any kind. CVMR ®’s plants are hermetically sealed, and all gases used in the process of vaporizing the metals are recycled.
All CVMR ® refining/manufacturing plants are built on a modular basis, enabling a substantial degree of flexibility, allowing a plant to be built and to grow gradually. Each module can produce different morphologies of carbonyl nickel or iron powders. Each module is self-sufficient and pays off its own capital cost usually in less than 3 years and continues to operate as a module within the larger, fully integrated operation for the entire life of the plant, estimated to be well over 60 years. Each module is capable of processing different ore concentrates and hence manufacturing various metal products, for diverse markets.
CVMR ®’s refining activities will revitalize the extraction industry of nickel and iron in Albania and create numerous high paying jobs in the country with a multiplier effect leading to related new high-tech industries in the country.