Kooragang island
http://www.orica.com
ammonium-nitrate, Town, DiDo
Phone:
Address:
15 Greenleaf Rd, kooragang, NSW, 2304
State: 15 Greenleaf Rd, kooragang, NSW, 2304
Email:
Kooragang Island, that is located at Newcastle, in New South Wales, at theentrance to the Hunter Valley, is an integral part of Orica's world wideoperations in that it is here where the company bases a product dispatchfacility, two ammonium nitrate plants, three nitric acid plants and anammonia plant. The Orica Kooragang Island operations employ 210permanent personnel and up to 40 regular contractors. During plantmaintenance periods this worforce expands by a further 150 people.
The Kooragang Island Plant Produces Ammonia From Methane Natural gas
The Kooragang Island ammonia plant produces around 360,000 tonnes ofammonia a year from methane natural gas. This ammonia is used by Oricato produce ammonium nitrate and nitric acid which is sold to therefrigeration and agricultural industry.Kooragang Island Nitric Acid Plants turn Ammonia Into Nitric Acid
The three nitric acid plants convert ammonia into nitric acid at the rate of 330,000 tonnes a year and the ammonium nitrate plants produce around400,000 tonnes of industrial grade ammonium nitrate annually for use inthe mining and quarrying industries as explosive products.The Kooragang Island plants produce ammonia nitrate by causing achemical reaction to occur between nitric acid and ammonia. Liquid andsolid ammonium nitrate products are manufactured at the KooragangIsland plants.
Kooragang Island Markets Ammonium Nitrate in Solution or Solid State
Mining companies purchase ammonium nitrate from Orica in solution, orin two solid forms. The solid forms are known as being either prill orgranulated. Manufacturing of the prill product requires the mixing ofvapourised ammonia and nitric acid in a neutraliser. This results in an 83percent ammonium nitrate solution. The strength of the solution isincreased by evaporation with the more concentrated solution then sprayedinto what is called a 'prill tower' where it forms itself into solid balls of ammonium nitrate of between one and three millimeters in diameter. This resulting product is known as 'prill.' The prill is blow dried with hot air and cooled off inside rotating drums after which it is screened and coated to improve its storage quality.The granulated Opal, Orica's other ammonium nitrate product, ismanufactured in a different plant. In this plant the nitric acid andvapourised ammonia is mixed in a pipe reactor in order to produce asolution. Some of this solution is sent offsite to be used in the making of medical gas, or explosive emulsions. What is retained is put through anevaporator to give the ammonium nitrate a higher concentration. Thehighly concentrated solution is then sprayed into a fluidised drumgranulator which forms small balls of solid ammonium nitrate. The productis then screened to a four millimetre size before the granules are coated to improve their storage capability as was done with the prill product.Oversize and undersize granules are returned to tbe crushed and then onceagain put through the granulator. Solid ammonium nitrate ready formarketing is stored in bulk in air conditioned storage. From here it is either bagged or dispatched in bulk. The bagging facility places the product into bags that hold more than one tonne.
