Under a service agreement with Dundee Precious Metals’ Namibia Custom Smelters, ABB will manage all
mainte-nance at the NCS Tsumeb facilities, shown here, provide process optimization, energy consulting
and equipment lifecycle services at the site, and manage all third-party subcontractors and suppliers.

ABB’s Full Service model, which encom-passes the complete management and oper-ation of a plant’s maintenance function, development and implementation of expert measures to improve productivity and equip-ment reliability, will be employed at NCS.

NCS is located in Tsumeb, Namibia, approximately 425 km north of the capital, Windhoek. The plant, which was commis-sioned in 1963, is owned by Dundee Precious Metals Inc. of Canada. It com-prises two primary smelting furnaces, three converters, and has an annual production capacity of 200,000 metric tons of copper concentrate from the treatment of complex copper concentrates containing gold, silver and arsenic.

Dundee Precious Metals reported recently that a used oxygen plant, pur-chased in the first quarter of 2011, was shipped from North America to Namibia in November 2011 and arrived on site in the first quarter of 2012. The company expect-ed this second oxygen plant to be commis-sioned before the end of 2012, which will increase the smelting capacity of the Ausmelt furnaces to 240,000 mt/y from its current capacity.

Total capital expenditures for 2012 at the smelter are projected to be approximate-ly $60 million for environmental and plant optimizations projects, according to Dundee.

The smelter is one of only a few in the world that is able to treat arsenic-bearing copper concentrates. Both blister copper and arsenic trioxide are produced from the concentrates; the copper is then delivered to refineries for final processing, while the arse-nic trioxide is sold to third party customers.

Under the service agreement, ABB will manage all maintenance to improve produc-tivity and equipment reliability at the plant, and retain and develop all existing mainte-nance staff and management. In addition, ABB will provide process optimization, ener-gy consulting and equipment lifecycle serv-ices at the site, as well as manage all third-party subcontractors and suppliers.

Hans Nolte, vice president and manag-ing director, NCS, said, “As new state-of-the-art technology is introduced, highly skilled engineering staff will be required to maintain the smelter in the future. NCS is confident that ABB will apply best prac-tices and transfer knowledge to Namibian employees who will benefit from this part-nership in the long run.”