The Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development has recently announced the prize winners of the 14th National Survey and Design Award for Excellent Engineering Projects. The potassium chloride project (with the capacity of one million tons per year) of Qinghai Salt Lake Industry Group Company Limited, co-designed by Changsha Institute, wins the golden award. This is the second time for Changsha Institute to claim this honor following the Maluping mine deepening project of Guizhou Kailin (Group) in 2000.
The potassium chloride project (with the capacity of one million tons per year) of Qinghai Salt Lake Industry Group is among the first top 10 signature projects for Western China development, one of the world’s biggest production facilities to make potassium chloride with the intercrystalline brine of the salt lake and so far China’s biggest potassium chloride producer. Changsha Institute designed brine extraction, transportation and discharge, flood prevention and control, brine pumping stations in the salt field and supportive facilities, and the external water supply system for public facilities. The staffs of Changsha Institute creatively developed and applied the world advanced technology featuring "extraction-transportation separation, scattered brine extraction and centralized transportation", broke the bottlenecks to massive exploitation of resources of the salt lake, realized massive collection of intercrystalline brine with high intensity and at a great depth, and set several new records for salt lake engineering construction.
The project was completed and put into trial operation in 2003, reached the designed capacity in 2006 and was accepted by the state and put into official operation in August 2007. It makes China the 7th country in the world with facilities capable of producing one million tons of potassium fertilizer per year and increases the market share of domestic potassium fertilizer from less than 10% to above 25%, marking that China's industrial technology for producing potassium fertilizer has reached the world advanced level. The project has not only promoted agricultural development, but also boosted local economic growth and generated remarkable economic and social benefits.
The National Survey and Design Award for Excellent Engineering Projects is the top award in China for survey and design of construction, transport, railway, water conservancy, electricity and metallurgy projects. This is the 14
th edition of the Award since 1980, with 4,405 projects acknowledged in total over the years. Previous winners include the West-East Pipeline project, the Qinghai-Tibet Railway project, the Donghai Bridge project, and construction projects for Beijing Olympic Games and Expo 2010.