HISTORY
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ZincOx was initially formed as a Dutch company in 1997 by Andrew Woollett and Noel Masson. The senior management of the company were formerly with Reunion Mining plc, a British junior mining and exploration company that was ultimately taken over by Anglo American plc. Reunion explored for and developed mineral resources in Africa. It was formed by Andrew Woollett and Peter Wynter Bee in 1989 at a time when several African countries had rejected central communist economic principles and were changing their investment regulations to encourage foreign investment. Due to a dearth of mineral exploration and development during the post colonial communist influenced era, new exploration concepts and process technology had passed Africa by. The application of these new ideas to Africa created a relatively low risk and exciting mineral investment opportunity that Reunion was established to realize. Over the course of the next 10 years, Reunion explored in twelve countries and developed two mines (copper and gold).
In 1996, Reunion farmed into Anglo American's Skorpion zinc oxide deposit, in Namibia. Anglo American had been unable to find an economic process to treat this ore due to its unconventional mineralogy. Under the terms of the farm-in, Reunion could earn a 60% interest in the project by completing a bankable feasibility study. Over the course of the next two years, exploration doubled the reserve (20 million tonnes at 10% zinc). The Skorpion project saw the first use of solvent extraction to recover zinc from a primary deposit. Tecnicas Reunidas were critically involved in the success of this project. As a world leader in zinc solvent extraction technologies, it provided and licensed the zinc solvent extraction process now in full-scale operation at Skorpion. Rather than isolate the zinc bearing minerals for sale as a concentrate, zinc was recovered by direct dissolution in dilute sulphuric acid. The solution was filtered and purified using zinc solvent extraction prior to fairly conventional electrowinning, melting and casting. Following the completion of the feasibility and earn-in, in 1999 Anglo American purchased Reunion. Anglo American developed the Skorpion mine and integrated electro-refinery at a cost of US$450 million and it is today one of the largest zinc mines in the world (150,000 tonnes per annum) and it has the lowest operating cost. ZincOx was set up to repeat the success of the Skorpion. ZincOx initially carried out an extensive literature review of geological records to identify zinc oxide deposits. It was immediately clear that each deposit had slightly and some times markedly different mineralogy and that each would require a bespoke metallurgical solution. The company started to build up a team of metallurgists and chemical engineers and to establish special working relationships with a number of European universities and laboratories. Jabali Drilling
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The company's first mining interests were obtained in Jabali, Yemen through an earn-in that was agreed in 1997. This deposit presented many complex technical challenges but the feasibility study and earn-in were finally completed in 2005. Following the award of the mining licence in 2007, financing was finally concluded in 2008 and development is now underway. Over its first four years the company sampled and evaluated every major non-sulphide zinc deposit in the world. This work concluded that very few deposits were large enough to support an integrated mine and refinery as had been developed at Skorpion.
In 2001, the company was able to acquire, on very good terms a 95% interest in the high grade Shaimerden zinc “oxide” deposit in Kazakhstan. Due to the deteriorating market conditions for zinc following its purchase, development financing would have been extremely difficult and the deposit was sold in 2003. Under the terms of the sale ZincOx was to be entitled to additional payments for the first 4-5 years of the mine's life and these payments enabled the company to declare its first profits in 2006.
The experience gained by the study of numerous different non-sulphide ore deposits led to the realization that this experience could be used to recover zinc from other unconventional materials, i.e. secondary and waste materials. Secondary materials tend to be costly and frequently occur in only very small amounts which are almost impossible to collect in sufficient quantity to meet ZincOx's minimum size criteria. Most wastes also suffer form potential capacity deficiency. There is one notable exception, however, the waste generated by recycling steel, Electric Arc Furnace Dust (EAFD), a fuller description of which is given in the Recycling section of this website. The company has identified a number of potential recycling projects and plans for plants are well advanced in the USA (Ohio), Turkey (Aliaga), Thailand (Chonburi) and Korea (Pohang). The Ohio plant is the most advanced and development work commenced in June 2008. Recycling produces a zinc concentrate as an intermediate product that has special benefits which may not be recognised by zinc electro-refineries operated conventionally. While the production of a zinc concentrate is a viable and attractive operation, it is, however, also financially attractive to own and operate a refinery dedicated to the treatment of concentrate derived from waste. In light of this, in 2006 ZincOx purchased, on very attractive terms, the Big River Zinc electro-refinery in the USA. The plant had been closed as a result of the closure (through exhaustion) of the last of the local mines and the very tight concentrate supply conditions prevailing at that time. ZincOx was able to acquire the plant. Big River is currently on care and maintenance pending the supply of concentrate from the Ohio recycling project. The electrowinning of zinc metal requires considerable energy, in view of the company's increasing progress in developing recycling projects in Asia, in 2008 the company entered into a memorandum of understanding concerning the potential development of a major new electro-refinery at Bintulu, in Malaysia. The advantage of this location is the potential for the supply of long term cheap hydro-electrical power. |
Anglo American's Skorpion Mineral Electro-refining
Drill Rigs arrive at Shaimerden