Calabrian Corporation

Acid Plant Database September 20, 2021

Owner	INEOS Calabrian Corporation
Location	375 Hallnor Road Porcupine Timmins, Ontario Canada
Background	www.calabriancorp.com Calabrian Corporation founded in 1968 Calabrian Corp acquired by INEOS in 2016 and is now part of INEOS Enterprises, benefiting from continued investment in its facilities and looking at opportuniites to expand its global footprint to serve customers in other markets through local production of sulphur dioxide and derviatives.
Website	www.ineos.com
Plant	-
Coordinates*	48° 30' 31" N, 81° 8' 30" W
Type of Plant	Liquid SO₂
Gas Source	Elemental Sulphur Oxygen
Plant Capacity	40,000 TPA
SA/DA	N/A
Emissions	-
Status	Operating
Year Built	2017
Technology	SO₂Clean
Contractor	Bestech www.bestech.com
Remarks	-
Pictures	-
General	Project and Construction Management: Praetorian Construction Management Ltd. www.praetoriancm.com
References	-
News	June 29, 2017 - The newest industrial operation in Timmins had a community grand opening Thursday with an appropriate Texas-style barbecue lunch for community leaders. INEOS Calabrian, the new plant that creates industrial sulphur dioxide (SO₂) celebrated the event at the newly built plant and processing facility on Hallnor Road, in the city’s East End. The company, which has its head office in Texas, hosted city council members, economic development officials, industrial leaders and chamber of commerce members for a lunch that featured barbecued chicken, ribs, baked beans, sausage and cornbread. Timmins site manager Kevin Rogers welcomed the group to the new plant and gave his thanks to several community partners that helped the company get the new facility up and running. Rogers also extended thanks to the municipality. “A special thank you to Mayor (Steve) Black and his council,” said Rogers. “They’ve done incredible things for us over the last two years. They’ve introduced us to a lot of partners we have now.” He specifically mentioned the work of the Timmins Economic Development Corporation (TEDC) describing the efforts of TEDC as “absolutely incredible.” INEOS Calabrian CEO Ashley Reed, who said this was his first ever trip to Eastern Canada, described his company as having 17,000 employees with 67 sites around the world. The new Timmins operation is the first ever in Canada, he said. Reed said he wanted to assure the community that the company’s priority is through a program named SHE, an acronym standing for Safety, Health and Environment. “I want to say that to you that you know that when we operate this plant, what we think about No. 1 is the safe and healthy operation of our plant and how we impact on the environment,” said Reed. “The plant was on-stream in January. We’ve had a successful commissioning. We’re now running at about two-thirds capacity and we’re looking for more customers.” He also wished the new employees well and to have successful careers at the plant. There are 20 employees at the facility, many from similar industrial jobs at former mining operations in Timmins and the former pulp and paper plant in Iroquois Falls. The employees took their training and testing under company supervision at Northern College, Timmins campus. Reed said the company was proud of the new plant in Timmins. He said he hoped that the wider community of Timmins would come to take pride in the plant as well. Mayor Black welcomed the guests on behalf of the city of Timmins. Black also thanked FedNor and NOHFC (Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation) for providing the $5 million that saw the creation of the Hallnor Industrial Rail Park. “It’s great to have Calabrian here as the anchor tenant for the new industrial rail park, but it couldn’t have been done without those funding partners,” said Black. He also expressed thanks to city staffers who worked on bringing the project forward. Black said the speed of bringing the project online in less than two years has become the standard by which other development projects in the city will likely be measured. The SO₂-Clean proprietary product created at the Calabrian plan is used both in gold mining and in the pulp and paper industry as a waste water treatment chemical that is used to destroy cyanide from the leaching process. Customers throughout Eastern Canada were previously serviced by plants in the United States. Those customers will now be served by the plant in Timmins. May 4, 2016 - The new SO₂ (Sulphur Dioxide) plant being built in Timmins won’t stink like rotten eggs. It won’t harm the environment; it won’t be a danger to workers in the plant and the neighbours will hardly notice it.That’s the word from Lee Smith, the man in charge of engineering and technical matters for the new plant that is to be constructed on the west side of Hallnor Road, close to the Ontario Northland rail crossing there.Smith spoke to Timmins city council this week partly to let council get an update on the plans for the new facility and also to speak to any environmental fears members of the public might have about the plant.Speaking in an easy Texas drawl, Smith told council his company, which has been in business since 1968, is the largest commercial producer of SO₂ product in North America. But he said it’s not the same product many people associate with air pollution.“In the 1990s, the early 1990s, Calabrian developed a process we call SO₂Clean™. It is a proprietary process for producing sulphur dioxide,” he said. “This process we have is ideal for servicing pulp and paper, but especially the mining industry here and that’s why we came to this area.” The sulphur dioxide is used in the gold refining process to neutralize cyanide, once gold has been separated from rock by the cyanide.Smith said Canadian pollution laws have been tightened up in recent years to the point that there are fewer sources able to make the product needed in mining.“It has created somewhat of a shortfall or a difficulty for the gold miners to get their hands on the SO₂ and we happen to have a wonderful technology that meets both of those requirements, right. We can service the gold mines and at the same time be sensitive to the environment,” said Smith.“We had opportunities to go to a few other places, but we felt like this was a place we could call home and we wanted to be part of this community,” he added.In order to meet the correct engineering and environmental requirements, Smith said the company hired BESTECH, a well-known Northern Ontario engineering and environmental consulting company, to oversee the project.Lee mentioned that as part of Calabrian’s application, there was a public input procedure set up through the Ontario Ministry of Environment. The public input process recently closed on April 28th. The 45-day period was advertised in The Daily Press, both in print and online.“We had seven public comments came back,” Smith told city council.He said one of the first concerns was about a liquid waste stream. Smith said the Calabrian plant did not produce a liquid waste stream other than a product called sodium bisulphite.“That’s something that you guys use here in your waste treatment facility to treat to your waterworks. So we take what could be waste and turn it into something usable,” said Smith.Another concern was raised, said Smith, about the environmental permitting process.“From a permitting standpoint there is a permit required for our facility but it is essentially for rainwater runoff,” said Smith. He said any rainwater would go back into the environment. He said all the chemical processes at the plant are contained within the plant.“Anything that is inside that building, if it were to be spilled, dripped, leaked would be captured in a sump system and re-used in the process,” said Smith.He said the second waste stream queried was the solid waste stream. Smith said the only solid waste produced is actual sulphur, which he said was minimal.“It is a non-hazardous material,” said Smith, adding that it is such a small quantity it is not commercially feasible and will likely be landfilled under guidance from the ministry of environment.He added that it is also known that sulphur can burn. Smith said that sulphur on site would be stored in a remote area, outside the plant, surrounded by an automatic fire suppression system.Air emissions were also questioned said Smith.“Many times when people think about SO₂ or SO₂ production, they think about maybe the Superstack down in Sudbury,” said Smith. He said the stack at the Calabrian plant would be roughly four inches in diameter and about 20 metres tall.“We will have about zero-point-one parts per million of SO₂ in that stream, zero-point-one. That’s even below the odour threshold for SO₂,” said Smith.“When you look at what the ministry has established as the limitations on SO2 emissions from a facility like ours at the fence-line, we are less than 25% of what the ministry has established,” he said.Smith added that the Calabrian process does not produce NOx emissions, also known as “nox emissions” or brown gases, which are air pollutants more generally associated with cars, trucks, industrial boilers and gas turbines.“That’s not going to be an issue,” said Smith.Another matter he spoke to was the odour concern, often associated with sulphur dioxide. He said many people refer to it as the rotten egg smell.“Let me tell you why that’s not going to be a problem for Timmins,” said Smith.“The sulphur that we use is different than others. It is what is called de-gassed sulphur. That means we actually take sulphur that came out from crude oil in the ground. It’s been through a refinery. And as they got ready to sell it to us, they do what’s called de-gassing of it. They actually drive the H₂S (hydrogen sulphide) out of the sulphur,” said Smith.He said the product will be brought into Timmins by rail car will not have the smelly element included in it. By way of example Smith mentioned that every day the delivery drivers in Texas open the hatches on their trucks, they do not need masks or any special equipment because there is no offensive odour. Smith also said the plant will operate on the basis of one rail car every two days, to bring in raw product. The finished product will be shipped out on the basis of about four truck loads a day.Smith said another concern raised in Timmins was a concern about “acid mist”.“I’ve heard people in town say I don’t want that acid plant,” Smith said, adding that Calabrian is producing SO₂ and not sulphuric acid, which was a process in the former Kidd met-site smelter.“So we don’t have those issues that others may have dealt with in the past. I wanted to make sure we pointed that out. We’re not producing sulphuric acid. This is a different process,” he said.Smith will be available to meet the public on Wednesday when Calabrian holds an open house at the Days Inn and Conference Centre at 14 Mountjoy St. S. The event begins at 7 p.m. and the public is welcome to attend, ask questions about the plant and even inquire about employment opportunities. April 4, 2016 - Calabrian’s application is currently listed with the Ontario Environmental Registry, which is posted online at http://www.ebr.gov.on.ca/ERS-WEB-External. The EBR (Environmental Bill of Rights) reference number is 012-7078. The application states that Calabrian is seeking compliance approvals and will include the addition of new or historically unapproved sources for all emissions from the sulphur dioxide manufacturing facility producing sulphur dioxide gas which will be condensed to the liquid state for storage and shipment. The application includes all sources at the facility, including: - two (2) sequential sulphur dioxide absorbers, - one (1) cooling tower, - two (2) natural gas fired boilers, - natural gas fired comfort heating system and - diesel fired emergency generator. Emissions to the atmosphere from this facility include sulphur dioxide, particulate matter and products of combustion, said the application website. The public consultation period began in mid-March and will continue through to the last week of April. Anyone wishing to comment on the Calabrian application is asked to do so by April 28, 2016. All comments received before April 28, 2016, will be considered as part of the decision-making process by the Ministry if they are submitted in writing or electronically using the form provided in this notice and reference EBR Registry number 012-7078, said the government website.The website also notes that all comments and submissions received will become part of the public record. Participants will not receive a formal response to your comment, however; relevant comments received as part of the public participation process for this proposal will be considered by the decision maker for this proposal, said the website.

MTPD - Metric Tonne per Day STPD - Short Ton per Day
MTPA - Metric Tonne per Annum STPA - Short Ton per Annum
SA - Single Absorption
DA - Double Absorption

* Coordinates can be used to locate plant on Google Earth


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