CVG Bauxilum’s only active calciner exploded

Workers of the state-owned CVG Bauxilum reported the explosion of the company’s calciner 102, which occurred this Monday, November 25. This team It was the only one that remained active of the four calciners available at the state plant. and its explosion represents an impediment to continuing to produce alumina in the plant.

Active personnel of the company confirmed that the incident was reported yesterday afternoon and shared images to Caroní Mail where you can see the presence of security officials.

“The calciner was 102, it simply exploded due to lack of maintenance. That calciner had to be taken out of service last week because it had very strong hot spots and had many gas leaks in addition to many pieces of equipment that needed service and were not done on time. The entire internal structure of the calciner, the refractories and others are damaged. That calcinator has been out of campaign for approximately a year and they put patches in it, giving it chola and chola. That could be seen coming,” declared an active worker who asked to reserve his identity.

The CVG Bauxilum alumina plant aims to transform bauxite, through the Bayer process, into metallurgical grade alumina to obtain primary aluminum, produced at CVG Venalum.

The Bayer process is the main industrial method for producing alumina from bauxite, in which the bauxite is crushed and then washed in a hot solution of sodium hydroxide. Soda dissolves the aluminum minerals, but not other components of bauxite that remain solid. This stage is known as digestion. Subsequently, the solid waste is removed and sent to the decanter. Once free of impurities, aluminum hydroxide is formed. The hydroxide is heated in a calciner to finally convert it into alumina.

In short, without operational calciners, the company must paralyze its operations, since it cannot produce the material necessary to feed its sister companies.

“That situation happened last night. That is the only calciner that remained in service and was ‘parapeted’. Maintenance was scheduled to be done last week, but it turns out that Venalum bought an alumina and it came in poor condition, they left the calciner running. Because it was so patched, a part of the calciner exploded. We will have to see how long it will take to put it into service,” explained a retired worker who is in conversation with Bauxilum’s active staff.

The crisis at CVG Bauxilum is old

By September 2022, Ciudad Guayana was filled with “white dust” for more than 5 days, according to the citizen report, in the Atlantic axis and areas near the Matanzas area. It is assumed that this substance was alumina oxide, coming from a leak in the Bauxilum active calciner.

At this time, it was learned through the company’s union that the filter of the only active calciner in the company had broken down. This calciner was number 102, the same one that exploded this Monday.

Two years after this incident, the state company still has not repaired another of its four pieces of equipment and the only asset still has failures.

The general secretary of Sutralúmina Bolívar, the company’s union, Silvano Moreno, claimed not to be in the area and did not know the details of the incident, but explained that the calciner required maintenance and this was being scheduled for this week. Likewise, as in 2022, they stated that they were doing work to put another of the available calciners into operation.

“That calciner is out of service and they are doing prior maintenance to start it up and wait for some refractories to arrive to perform maintenance, so that it can last longer while general maintenance is carried out on the other calciner, which is the one that is going to come into service.” , he pointed out.

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