PRONICO Information

The Fenix Project is a fully integrated ferronickel production facility in eastern Guatemala first developed in 1960. In 2011 Solway Investment Group purchased 98.2% of the project from the Canadian company, HudBay Minerals, and gave a new start to the project. Today, the Fenix Project is comprised of a world-class nickel mine, a newly built power plant and the ProNiCo metal processing facility. The project has mining rights to 36.2 million tons of nickel ore reserves with 1.86% nickel, as well as the rights to an additional 70.0 million tons of resources within its license area. In 2014, the ProNiCo plant began operating, and is currently moving towards operating at its production capacity of over 20 kt of Ni pa. Fenix, which uses modern RKEF process technology, was built by Solway between 2011-2014. The plant has been operational since May 2014. Today, the project produces over 1,500 metric tons of nickel in ferronickel each month. A smart predictive line controller (SPLC) is currently being introduced which will allow the plant to achieve more sustainable operations and expand its capacity in 2018. In November 2018, the planned adjustment and tests with the manufacturer of the Hatch equipment will lift the current 75 MW power limit and will increase the capacity to the design value, up to 20 kt per year. This is equal to monthly nickel production capacity of 1,500 tons or more. The Fenix project is scheduled to achieve its target production volume in 2019. Pronico has been granted international certificates of environmental management systems ISO 14001, occupational health and safety management systems ISO 45001 and quality management system ISO 9001.