They collected soil samples from undisturbed areas within a three-mile radius of the mine and
smelter, and came up with background threshold values of 112 mg/kg for arsenic and 35 mg/kg for lead.
The delegation participated in a two-day workshop on arsenic in the environment followed by the visit to the Freeport-McMoRans
smelter operation in Miami, which is one of three primary copper
smelters in the US and has an acid plant.
Restarting the
smelter would make commercial sense as it would enable Bindura to save costs that it currently incurs by shipping concentrates to China, via the port of Durban on neighbouring South Africa's eastern coast.
The Company had hoped to bring a revolutionary lead metal production technology online prior to the closure of the
smelter. This proprietary, new technology (also announced in 2010) uses a wet-chemical, electrowinning process instead of a heat-based smelting process, greatly reducing sulfur dioxide and lead emissions.
Collectively, these
smelters contribute to about 8 per cent of the global aluminium
smelter production in the current scenario.
In addition to the
smelter which will have an initial annual capacity of 740,000 metric tonnes, the complex includes a bauxite mine with an initial capacity of four million metric tonnes per year, and an alumina refinery with an annual initial capacity of 1.8 million metric tonnes.
Summary: Project to include the construction of two
smelters with output of 500,000tns of copper annually
That meant the
smelter had to be located near to a port with good transport links to the site.
The Save Our
Smelter (SOS) campaign asks all Alcan employees, local people, businesses and organisations across the region to sign a petition and display SOS posters, in a bid to show ministers the strength of feeling behind efforts to protect the employer.
"Basically what we do is use the energy in the hot dross to extract more aluminium on site at the
smelter and then extract more aluminium using a mechanical process which leaves us with aluminium oxide.
Alongside the signing of the joint venture agreement, the project company,
Smelter Asia, also executed the principal terms of the Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with Syarikat Sesco Berhad, the wholly owned subsidiary of Sarawak Energy Berhad, to supply over 600MW of power to the proposed
smelter.