A major industrial investment project is underway in Kokkola, as the Sibanye-Stillwater’s Keliber lithium refinery is being built in the Kokkola Industrial Park. ASES will carry out the process electrification installations for the new refinery. This is a major contract for ASES.
”For us, this is a very large single contract, including more than 20 person-years of work during a job lasting just over a year”, the ASES CEO Jouni Saloniemi states.
Construction of the Sibanye-Stillwater’s Keliber lithium refinery has started in March 2023, and the project will soon be in the stage of process electrification installations. The installations will be completed at the end of February 2025. Process electrification of the Keliber lithium refinery is a huge undertaking, including e.g. approx. 230 km of cabling, 500 motors, and 22 km of cable ladders.
Image source: the Keliber lithium project, Sibanye-Stillwater
ASES has demonstrated its competence in the process electrification of large entities in several large projects, where experience has been accumulated e.g. with the projects of Outokumpu's Kemi mine, Outokumpu's Tornio factories, Manga LNG terminal and Metsä Fibre's bioproduct mill in Kemi. The Sibanye-Stillwater’s Keliber lithium project is a good continuation of the list of these major projects.
Keliber is an advanced lithium project, located in Kaustinen and Kokkola, Finland. The project aims to be the first European producer of battery-grade lithium hydroxide from its own mined ore reserves, thus contributing towards the green transition by facilitating the electrification of transportation. The Keliber lithium project is being developed by Sibanye-Stillwater (~80%), a multinational mining and metals processing Group, with Finnish Minerals Group (20%), a state-owned company developing the value chain of lithium-ion batteries in Finland.
An investment of 656 million euros has been approved for the development of the project, of which the first phase is building of the Keliber lithium refinery. The complex also includes mines and a concentrator in Kaustinen. After the investments are completed, Sibanye-Stillwater will manage the entire process chain from ore extraction to the production of battery-grade lithium hydroxide.
(Source: Sibanye-Stillwater's Keliber lithium project)
Image source: the Keliber lithium project, Sibanye-Stillwater