Pasminco Port Pirie Smelter

Company Name Mount Isa Mines Limited Pasminco Port Pirie Smelter Hachinohe Smelting Company Sumitomo Metal Mining Co. Harima Works Hosokura Smelting Refining Co. 

Company Name Pasminco Port Pirie Smelter iUistralia Toho Dne Co. Chigirlahima Plant Hindustan Zinc Ltd., Chanderiya 1 liMlia Asarcolne. East Helana Plant Met-Mex PeiK>les, S.A. Torreon / Mexico... 

COMMISSIONING AND OPTIMISATION OF THE NEW LEAD AND SILVER REFINERY AT THE PASMINCO PORT PIRIE SMELTER... 

Pasminco Port Pirie Smelter is part of the Australian company Pasminco which was formed in 1988. It has a smelting and refining history based on the discovery of the rich lead, zinc and silver deposits at Broken Hill, Australia, over 100 years ago. 

Table 1 - Pasminco Port Pirie Smelter - Refinery Modernisation Key Construction and Commissioning dates.

The authors wish to thank the management of Pasminco Port Pirie Smelter for the permission to publish this paper. The assistance of R. Knight and J. Clark of BRM and K. Vertongen and Y. Mampey of UM throu the initial commissioning phase is also duly acknowledged. 

Figure 1 - Flowsheet of Pasminco s Port Pirie Smelter New Batch Lead and Silver Refinery...

Close to 85% of all products using lead metal are recyclable. One direct consequence is the continuously rising recycling rate of lead-bearing scrap. In 1999, refined lead recovered fijom secondary materials totaled 2.9 million tonnes, equivalent to 47.2% of total production worldwide or 58.9% in the Western World (4). Total refined lead metal supply rose in 1999 to 6.143 million tonnes. Of this, 4.93 milUon tonnes were produced in Ae Western World. Considering that the bulk of the lead from secondary materials is still recovered in the Western World, approximately 2.2 million tonnes of lead from primary sources was produced in the Western World. As shown in Table II, significant increases in production were noted at Pasminco s Port Pirie operation, in Kazakhstan as a result of increased output of the Ust-Kamenogorsk smelter and fix>m China. 

B. Kretschmer, G. Burgess and I. Sanderson, Recent changes to Pasminco s Lead Smelter at Port Pirie , Zinc and Lead Processing. J.E. Dutrizac, J.A. Gonzalez, G.L. Bolton and P. Hancock, Eds., The Metallurgical Society of CIM, Montreal, Canada, 1998,455-469. 

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