PASAR expands capacity

The Philippine Associated Smelting and refining Corp. (PASAR), the country’s lone smelting and refining plant, recently wrapped-up an upgrading program that increased its smelting capacity from 600,000 dry metric tons (DMT) to 720,000 DMT and its refinery from 172,500 metric tons per year (MTPY) to 215,000 mpty.

“Mining is a very Dynamic sector. The world has seen commodities especially metallics on the rise for several years in a row. The pioneer smelter that PASAR is would want to be able to maximize its potential and make its presence felt in the mining community, especially now that Asia has several smelters vying for offtake contracts,  said Sias Els, PASAR president.

Among the improvements that enhanced smelting operations include the installation of new oxygen plant: installation of loss in weight  charging system to the Flash Smelting Furnace with Electrodes (FSFE): improvement of the fugitive gas collection system; improvement of the FSFE waste heat boiler: improvement on the brick work and cooling system for the FSFE: rehabilitation of the FSFE and converter furnace (CF) electrostatic precipitators: use of improved catalyst in the sulfuric acid plant: installation of the new mist electrostatic precipitators in acid plant: and, various improvements in sulfuric acid plant. These improvements also cover for the environment protection.

On the other hand, refinery operations were made better through the improvements using a permanent cathode technology or ISA Process, which uses stainless steel ISA plate to replace the thin starter sheet.