By Paul Inge Norkyn og Albert Karikoski

Through an internal photo competition, all SYD-employees have had the opportunity to provide pictures telling stories from their everyday work lives seen from their own perspectives.

The picture below won the competition, and shows one of the Company´s apprentices, Kristian Pleym Reisænen, working on an old construction in the former superslig plant.  

Paul Inge Norkyn, who is currently employed as the Company´s Senior Process Engineer and who has been working for Sydvaranger throughout all production periods, was a key player in developing new products at the former AS Sydvaranger. Superslig was one of these products and was, according to Paul Inge, produced in the period 1994 – 1996. Production of special products was possible due to the purity of the magnetite. Developing process solutions that enabled the production of pure magnetite products was also one of the conditions.

According to Paul Inge, the superslig production was the initial step in developing and producing high grade special products. Annual production of superslig was in the range of approximately 100 to 150.000 tonnes, with a magnetite content of about 99,7 %. The product was used in the production of pure iron powder, which is a raw material used to manufacture e.g. machine parts and grease-free bearings.

In close cooperation with one of the largest producers of magnets in Europe, a project on developing the superslig even further was initiated, aiming at manufacturing a raw material necessary for production of magnets.  The goal was to produce the next generation of magnets, with a higher volume energy. AS Sydvaranger also succeeded in obtaining an approval for a patent related to upgrading the superslig process to achieve a purity of 99,9 %.

Black and red pigments were produced, for use in paint. The black pigment, which was finely grinded magnetite, could also be used as toner for copy machines.

The superslig production came to a stop when AS Sydvaranger was shut down in 1996.

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