“Ufaleynickel” JSC, Verkhny Ufaley, Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia

A. S. Avdeev, Deputy Chief Engineer on Prospective Development
M. B. Gladkikh, Managing Director, e-mail: nico@ufaleynickel.ru

Institute of Metallurgy of Ural Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences, Ekaterinburg, Russia

E. N. Selivanov, Director

In the beginning of the XX century, during the economy industrialization period, Russia was under an urgent need of nickel, necessary for the heavy engineering development. On August 1, 1931, there was started the construction of industrial shops of future nickel plant in Verkhny Ufaley. The first Russian rondels (cylinders) of metallic cobalt, containing 99.0% of cobalt and 0.2% of nickel, were obtained on May 1, 1937. Industrial manufacturing of this metal was started to the end of the year. Ufaley nickel plant was the first USSR school of specialists of nickel and cobalt manufacturing. On March 2012, “Ufaleynickel” JSC was included in the “Highmetals KDS” managing company. Drop of nickel prices happened against a background of the world economic crisis and, as a result, decreasing of customer demand of non-ferrous metals. Nowadays, the plant carries out the work, directed on the searching of methods of decreasing of products' cost price by optimization of technological modes and development of new engineering solutions.