When the setting sun gilds the Solo River, a cargo ship from Indonesia, loaded with nickel hydroxide produced by Huayue project, is smoothly moored at Jiaxing Port Terminal late at night. These nickel hydroxide will be transported to the production lines of various bases in China as quickly as possible.

Thousands of kilometres away on Indonesia's Sulawesi Island, Huayue's 60,000-tonne nickel-metal-per-year nickel laterite ore hydrometallurgy project invested by Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt Industry Co., Ltd. is still brightly lit, with the rumbling of machines in the huge steel-structured plant ......

This modern factory under the glittering lights once set an industry record - the world's largest single hydrometallurgy project of nickel laterite ore.

Behind this "world's largest", there are tens of thousands of workers, and Dang Yonggui, deputy general manager of Huayue project, is one of them. They set off from Tongxiang, travelled to a foreign country, overcame thousands of difficulties and dangers, and built a modern factory on the island.

The salty sea breeze comes to the face, mixed with the sound of sirens and the roar of ship engines from afar.......In 2021, As a production and technical manager, Deng Yonggui first set foot on this island. Facing the unfamiliar environment, he has no fear in his heart, but rather an urge to meet the challenge.

However, the beginning of the story was very difficult.

The smelting of low-grade nickel laterite ore is recognised as a worldwide problem, and is known as "the pearl on the tip of the non-ferrous metal smelting tower". At the beginning of the project, facing the unfavourable situation of "process risk, high investment and short equipment", many people were skeptical about Huayou Cobalt's world's largest single hydrometallurgy project of nickel laterite ore.

"Instead of looking up elsewhere, we should be here side by side." There was no mature experience to learn from, during that time, Huayue's project team crowded in the dormitory office, figuring out the construction and challenging the impossibility.

Overseas projects are "meat bones" and "hard bones". Project equipment are non-standard equipment, many processes are used for the first time, the project in the actual use and production operation of many problems in practice, and there is no mature experience to learn from, Huayue project team only in the production process to constantly feel the improvement, innovation and perfection.

Half of the months in Indonesia are rainy season, and this period just overlaps with the peak of the electrical installation construction of the whole site, and the construction site is often attacked by several heavy rains or even torrential rains. In addition to climatic factors, the shortage of construction materials and tools in Indonesia has caused obstacles to the project.

In order to ensure the smooth progress of the project, seizing the few golden construction periods, the construction team worked overtime and successively completed the steel structure installation, dense machine and bridge installation, comprehensive pipeline network in the plant, piping, equipment, electrical installation and other debugging work, and the appearance of the site has been changed everyday.

Into the production debugging period, just finished solving the old problems, new problems have emerged. raw materials, mineral properties are unpredictable, the technical team after continuous experiments and technical research, to finalise a new type of reductant, in order to enhance the stability of the same time to reduce costs.

For all the key technical and production problems affecting the production line, the Huayue project team has achieved a balance between problem solving and smooth production through independent innovation and other initiatives.

From the start of construction on 1 March 2020 to the launch of the first batch of qualified products on 28 November 2021, the team has worked hard for more than 500 nights and days.

The team overcame one difficulty after another, in 2022, Huayue project only took 4 months to reach the standard of production. In 2023, Huayue project's single-month output is more than 7100 tonnes, the production capacity of more than 40% over the design capacity.

"We use first-class quality and speed to make Huayue project synonymous with 'Chinese speed' in Indonesia!" Deng Yonggui always remember the scene of the first ship of crude nickel hydroxide products shipped back to China, the ship, loaded with nearly 10,000 people together day and night working results.

In the project team, 80% of the Chinese personnel did not go home for more than a year, quietly sticking to it and turning love into construction power.

On 11th January this year, as the finished slurry was continuously transported to the 18m tank for storage, marking the commissioning of the SCM mine processing plant and long-distance pipeline transport project in Huayue. By now, the Huayue project has also finally completed the engineering closed loop of the whole process of mining - ore dressing - slurry conveying - smelting, and Huayou Cobalt has firmly grasped the nickel raw material resources in its own hands.

"A lot of people think you work hard overseas, it is right, but when the words come out, it seems like all this hard work disappears in an instant." Deng Yonggui said.

Looking back at more than three years of overseas struggle, the sea breeze of Indonesia's Sulawesi Island is still blowing, the lights in the park factory still shine, Deng Yonggui never regretted the decision - struggle in the distance!