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Sulphur 420 Sep-Oct 2025

19 September 2025

Aurubis completes major maintenance at Pirdop plant

BULGARIA

Aurubis completes major maintenance at Pirdop plant

Aurubis says that it has successfully completed scheduled maintenance at its Pirdop plant on time. The two-month operation marked the largest planned maintenance shutdown at the site in the past 30 years. With an investment of €115 million, Aurubis says the work ensures the long-term reliability and performance of the facility. Key upgrades included a full overhaul of the flash smelter, replacement of two electrostatic precipitators, and a major modernisation of the sulphuric acid production line. This modernisation involved installing a new converter and replacing six heat exchangers.

With the plant now fully back online, the improvements are expected to extend the interval between maintenance cycles from two to three years while also reducing the duration of future downtime. Sulphuric acid production at Pirdop is estimated at around 1.3 million t/a. It remains unclear whether these recent upgrades will result in a production increase at the site.

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