Overview

Grecian Magnesite (GM) is a privately owned company established in 1959 as a mining and industrial concern. However, the magnesite mining expertise goes back to 1914, when J.G. Lambrinides the “eminence grise” of Greek magnesite and a pioneer mining engineer, started the development and exploitation of most of the magnesite activities in Greece.

GM is a magnesite specialist. The company produces and commercialises caustic calcined magnesia, dead burned (sintered) magnesia, magnesium carbonate (raw magnesite), basic monolithic refractories and dunite (magnesium silicate). A wide range of grades is currently produced, addressing practically all applications where magnesite is used.

GM ranks among the top magnesia producers and exporters in the world, with a staff of around 425 people (in Greece & Turkey) and a turnover of some €65m. In caustic magnesia in particular, our company is a leading world-wide producer both in volumes and spectrum of applications served.

The company’s capacity is close to 200,000 tpa of calcined products and 60,000 tpa of basic monolithic refractories.

The company’s sales value to the European continent represents 70% of its turnover while another 10% corresponds to the Americas and the rest 20% covers Asia, Oceania and Africa.

The company’s major deposits and production facilities are located in Chalkidiki (also spelled Halkidiki), northern Greece, in Eskisehir, central-western Turkey, and in the island of Euboea, central Greece (small scale underground mining operation).

The “Chalkidiki” & “Eskisehir” deposits consist of six main active concessions totalling 80km2. The company also owns “reserve” concessions totalling 16 km2 for future exploitation.

GM magnesite is famous for its whiteness due to the low iron content (as low as 0.02% Fe in the calcined/final product) and the low levels of heavy metals and trace elements. Moreover, low lime content and microcrystalline structure are its additional advantages.

Assets also include a modern R&D facility near Thessaloniki, reserve deposits in Central & Northern Greece, and the headquarters in Athens & Istanbul.

Yerakini, Halkidiki

In the magnesite-rich region of Yerakini, Halkidiki, northern Greece, the ore is extracted by open pit methods.

After blasting, the RoM material is transported by own trucks (dumpers) to the beneficiation departments. In parallel, pre-concentrated magnesite is produced from the RoM old stockpiles via mobile processing units (screening & magnetic separation).

The RoM material is crushed, screened at various size fractions and washed, whereupon it passes through different beneficiation processes (X-ray/camera/laser sorting, magnetic separation, dense media) depending on the desired chemistry of the kiln-feed magnesite.

Overall, at Yerakini, there are 13 optical/X-ray sorters (7 camera, 5 laser and 1 X-ray), two classifying units, four magnetic separation lines and one dense media cyclone installation.

Calcination on site comes next: 3 rotary kilns and 1 shaft kiln, with a combined calcination capacity of 520 tpd, are fed with magnesite to produce caustic calcined magnesia and dead burned magnesia at ~900°C and ~1.800°C respectively.

The caustic calcined magnesia RoK (run of kiln) is then conveyed to the CCM final processing plant for final milling and classification, whereas the dead burned magnesia RoK goes to the DBM final processing plant to produce basic monolithic refractories or specialty DBM powders for high-end applications.

Source: Grecian Magnesite