Production of Ferro-Nickel and Environmental Measures at YAKIN Oheyama Co., Ltd.

Abstract

Our company was established in 1934 as Oheyama Nickel Mining Industry Co., Ltd. to purpose to smelt nickel ore yielded from Mt. Oheyama, a famous mountain located in the north of Kyoto. In 1942, a nickel smelting plant by Krupp-renn process was built in this place.
Krupp-renn process is one of the direct steel manufacturing process, which was developed in 1931 by German engineers to treat high silicate and low-grade ore effectively. Oheyama process is the only process in the world that uses Krupp-renn process except steel manufacturing.
At the end of the War in 1945, this nickel smelting was suspended. In 1952, the Oheyama plant resume its operation with change of raw materials, from low grade ore to more concentrated nickel ore imported from New Caledonia.
YAKIN Oheyama is now producing 1,000t of Ni as ferro-nickel a month.