The Tsumeb Smelter has been under the management of six companies for 62 years.
Until recently, Dundee Precious Metals owned the smelter before initially selling off its 98% interest to the Chinese company Sinomine for US$49 million.
Last week, Dundee Precious Metals said there were discussions to renegotiate the price to US$20 million.
The smelter smelts imported concentrates from Bulgaria, Chile, Peru, Greece, Zambia, and South Africa.
The smelter is one of only a few in the world that can treat arsenic and lead-bearing copper concentrates and can conclude long-term favourable contracts to treat such concentrates.
Both blister copper and arsenic trioxide (As2O3) are produced from the concentrates. The blister copper is delivered to refineries for final processing, and the As2O3 is sold to third-party customers.
It produces blister copper (98.5% CU), refined in Europe and Asia, and sulphuric acid as a by-product, sold to third-party clients for use in uranium and copper mining.
The facility consists of two primary smelting furnaces, the old reverberatory furnace and the refurbished Ausmelt furnace, and employs close to 600 people, including contractors.
Dundee Precious Metals announced in July 2012 the completion of a feasibility study by SNC-Lavalin, Johannesburg, SA, on installing a sulphuric acid plant at the smelter.
The construction of the N$2.3 billion sulphuric acid plant was commissioned in September 2013.
The ‘hot commissioning’ of the N$2.7 billion high-tech sulphuric acid plant was done in August 2015, and the official opening is scheduled for early next year.
On September 15, 2015, Dundee Precious Metals announced that it commenced an Ausmelt furnace rebrick at its Tsumeb complex copper concentrate smelter in Namibia.
The shutdown of the primary smelting furnace was initiated on September 12, 2015, to replace the refractory sidewall lining.
The late President Hage Geingob inaugurated the sulphuric acid plant on April 7, 2016.
The beginning
A US-based company, Newmont Mining Corporation, acquired the properties owned by Germans in South West Africa after World War II.
One of the companies was the Otavi Minen and Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft, which owned the Tsumeb Copper Mine.
The Otavi Minen- und Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft built two Pb-Cu blast furnaces in Tsumeb in 1907 to smelt local ores.
The Germans lost the mining assets under South Africa’s Custodian of Enemy Property law.
Newmont and the American Metal Company bought the Tsumeb copper mine for US$4 million. The companies formed Tsumeb Corporation Limited, which started operations at the Tsumeb mine in 1947.
The Tsumeb Corporation Limited built the smelter in 1962.
The smelter was commissioned in 1963 to smelt copper from Tsumeb Corporation’s copper mines, including Kombat, which had been reopened in 1962. Production officially started on March 3, 1964.
It featured an integrated copper and lead section (with a refinery) and smaller plants that produced cadmium and arsenic trioxide as by-products.
At that stage, the smelter produced more than 3,500 tons of copper and 6,000 tons of lead per month. By 1986, the smelter was also producing sodium antimonite for export.
In 1988, Gold Fields South Africa took over Tsumeb Corporation Limited, which Gold Fields Namibia administered.
Approximately six years later, the lead smelter was permanently closed.
In July–August 1996, Tsumeb Corporation Limited’s mining and smelting operations reached a standstill due to a prolonged labour strike.
This ultimately led to the closure and liquidation of Gold Fields Namibia in 1998.
In March 2000, Namibia’s High Court accepted an offer by Ongopolo Mining and Processing Limited to take over Gold Fields Namibia’s mines at Tsumeb, Kombat, Otjihase, and Khusib Springs, as well as the smelter complex.
From 2000 to 2008, only the copper section was operational, while the arsenic plant was run on a small scale.
In July 2006, Weatherly Mining International acquired Ongopolo Mining and Processing Limited.
In December 2008, Weatherly Mining International suspended all mining operations because of a significant decline in the world copper price and only kept the Tsumeb Smelter going.
The smelter was converted to a toll smelter at the beginning of 2009.
In March 2010, Weatherly Mining International sold the smelter to Dundee Precious Metals Inc. for N$33 million in cash and shares, with Weatherly retaining all mining assets.
Namibia Custom Smelters (Pty) Ltd., a Dundee Precious Metals wholly-owned subsidiary, operates the smelter.
In the 2024 1Q report, Dundee Precious Metals said the complex concentrate smelted in the first quarter of 2024, 54,773 tons, was 10% higher than the corresponding period in 2023 due primarily to increased plant availability following the completion of the maintenance work in the third quarter of 2023.
An EU-funded 2016 report says the smelter’s products are black copper, which is nearly pure but contains all the gold, silver, and other rare earths marketable for Louis Dreyfus.
It is arsenic-free and can be sold for further processing in many places.
There is also arsenic trioxide, a byproduct of the smelting of dirty concentrates, which gets marketed in Malaysia and South Africa for treating wood and pesticides in agriculture.
The smelter also produces sulphuric acid, which is sold to the uranium mines in the Erongo region.
The report says one of the smelter’s significant sources of concentrates is the Colquijirca Mine in Pasco Province, Peru, owned by Buenaventura.
