By Dickson Jere
I waited for while to see a story in the media of what this abnormal Cool Box is all about. I have not read much except that the Cool Box is for making oxygen. I then get to find out more from industry players out of curiosity. I miss being a journalist but only sometimes! Here are intriguing facts I discovered about the cold box, its costs of movement as well as how it fits in the national mine agenda of the country.
You see, in 2022, FQM announced the 115 million dollars package to upgrade the Smelter and this ‘Cold box’ is part of the oxygen plant of that smelting process. Once installed, the mine will increase its production output and help Zambia reach the targeted 3 million tonnes of copper production by 2031. The ‘cold box’ is part of that expansion process at FQM, which therefore fits perfectly into the government strategy.
But what does it do?
It is simply an oxygen plant. It produces pure oxygen that will feed into the smelter furnace to assist with burning at higher temperatures, which will make the Smelter run efficiently. FQM already has similar units at its Kansanshi Smelter that were installed in 2015 but this new one will increase the production.
FQM has spent about 15 million dollars to facilitate its transportation. Apart from the transportation costs, FQM has paid for the upgrade road works from Livingstone to Sesheke (which was in bad condition), created bypass roads along the route to Solwezi as well as other interventions. These includes removal of traffic lights, ZESCO cables, speed cameras and all have been paid for by FQM. Some potholes were mended for this exercise.
“Ultimately, these interventions will remain of benefit for the road users,” one official told me, citing the Livingstone-Sesheke road upgrades.
Ideally, the cold box should have been assembled in Zambia on site but it would have been more expensive.
“It requires to be assembled in a controlled factory environment. This is mainly to do with sensitive heat exchangers and distillation columns,” one expert explained to me.
“We could not build such a factory at the mine for just this unit..” he added, citing huge expenses.
What about the possible to damage to the roads? I asked in view of its weight of 154 tonnes.
The transportation, I was briefed, was well thought out by experts to reduce the damage to the roads by using a multi wheel and multi axe truck, which distributes the weight.
“As a result of the number of wheels on the transporting platform, the actual pressure dispersion on the road is less than that of a normal fully loaded 30 tone truck,” another expert said.
“Additionally, the transporting platform has wheels that turn together, this assists in weight distribution at corners and ensures that we manoeuvre easily, he added.
Overall, FQM, is implementing an impressive expansion project, which will cost 1.25 billion dollars, which was announced in 2022 and it will help Zambia reach the targeted 3 million targets of copper production by 2031.
