Pasar hikes smelting, refining capacities

The Philippine Associated Smelting and Refining Corp. (Pasar), the country’s lone smelting and refining plant, has raised its smelting capacity from 600,000 dry metric tons (DMT) to 720,000 DMT and its refinery capacity from 172,500 metric tons per year (MTPY) to 215,000 mtpy.

Pasar president Sias Els said, “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 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.”

Pasar is one of the biggest smelters in Asia and has been operating and providing employment in Isabel, Leyte since the early ’80s. It processes copper concentrates using state-of-the-art technology to remove impurities.  In the process, precious metals and other by-products are also recovered.

Last year, the company processed 180,973 DMT of copper, up from 160,189 DMT in 2006.

Pasar produces copper cathodes of international standard with 99.99 percent purity.

The smelting and refining firm was also able to produce 80 DMT of dore from only 50 DMT in 2006. Dore is an alloy that contains 25 percent  gold and 75 percent silver.

Pasar has standing off-take agreements with mining firms in Papua New Guinea, Argentina, Chile, Indonesia, Australia, Brazil and Canada.

Pasar  is not engaged in mining but is a custom-smelter which sources its concentrates from mining firms.

The company has been slowly implementing operational reforms since Glencore International AG acquired 90 percent of the government’s shareholdings and all its receivables in Pasar via competitive bidding in 1999.