‘Major milestone’: First pour in Port Pirie smelter rescue
Three months after a high-profile $135m government bailout, Port Pirie’s smelter is now the only Australian commercial producer of a metal that’s critical in the creation of advanced electronics.
The first antimony metal was cast this week at the Port Pirie smelter, owned by the beleaguered Nyrstar, in a major step forward for the plant that its owners claimed was at risk of being shut down earlier this year.
South Australian taxpayers chipped in $55m for the rescue package. Part of the investment now had been used to retool the smelters so Nyrstar could produce critical minerals, like antimony, in a pilot plant.
In a joint federal and state government release, it was claimed Nyrstar was now the only commercial producer of antimony metal in Australia and one of only a few producers globally.
South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas said the news backed the government’s investment that was “never about a bailout or propping up a business”.
“It was always structured towards diversification, growth and nourishing the potential for entirely new export markets,” Malinauskas said.
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Antimony – an alloy hardener for other metals – was an “important mineral” and critical to the manufacture of semiconductors that can be found in electronics, as well as in defence applications and flame-retardant materials, South Australian Chamber of Mines and Energy Nicola McFarlane told InDaily.
Nyrstar had intentions to be able to export antimony by the first half of 2026, and ramp up production to about 5000 tonnes per year by 2028.
That equated to about 15 per cent of the global antimony market, McFarlane said, putting the state at a real competitive advantage.
“They are really pushing to ramp up from this starting point with the first casting that they’ve been able to announce today,” she said.
“It’s great for Australia to be able to take these steps and be a real mover in terms of enabling the world to have diversification in our supply chains, so that we’re not all reliant on one country for the supply.”
She said there was global momentum building around critical minerals, citing the recently penned US-Australia Critical Minerals Framework – a joint $2 billion investment – “to really support us being able to add value to our resources here”.
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The facility was a project listed as part of the Critical Minerals Framework.
“I think that the investments to support this development mean that we are able to move further down the value chain,” she said.
“There’s that need for us to have other supply chains than those coming out of China.
“Globally, we need to be able to have diversity in terms of the supply chain and having Australia as part of an additional supply chain to our allied partners is of great benefit globally to the market.”
Nyrstar, in recent months, had been scaling up its operations at Port Pirie, bringing in additional metallurgists, engineers and mechanical tradespeople.
The 130-year-old smelter at Port Pirie was struggling financially prior to the joint investment earlier this year, with Nyrstar’s Singaporean owner Trafigura calling for government support in order to stay afloat.
According to Nyrstar, the site had more than 800 employees and 250 contractors. It was one of the world’s largest multi-metal smelters, where it refines lead, zinc fume, copper matte and by-products like sulphiric acid.
In its bid for government help, Nyrstar, which also operates smelters and mining operations in Europe and the USA, claimed it was losing millions of dollars per month as China dominated the market.
Treasurer and Mining and Energy Minister Tom Koutsantonis said Nyrstar’s Port Pirie facility had faced substantial geopolitical headwinds as a result of China’s distortion of the critical minerals market.
He claimed the government had faced “two choices”, to potentially lose Australia’s only lead refinery and globally significant multi-metals facility or to build an “investment package” to fund “critical maintenance, feasibility work and a pilot plant that now makes this facility one of very few in the western world capable of making antimony metal”.
Koutsantonis said the latest result showed the investment was safeguarding Port Pirie and Nyrstar’s workers “while keeping crucial skills in South Australia and putting our state at the forefront of the global push for critical minerals”.
Federal Minister for Industry and Innovation and Minister for Science Tim Ayres said the casting of the first antimony was “more than a technical milestone”.
“It’s a signal of new jobs and growth for South Australia’s regional economy,” Ayres said.
