Skorpion Zinc's refinery in Namibia has to suspend its operations for five weeks on a lack of raw material feed following a mine strike, while the delivery of certain exports will have to be delayed, Fastmarkets has learned.
The Namibian operation, Africa's largest integrated zinc operation, has run out of zinc oxide ore as a result of a strike at its mine that started on February 22, parent company Vedanta Zinc International said at an emailed statement on Tuesday. The refinery has been running at an annual capacity of 90,000 tonnes per year in 2018 and will be running at 130,000 tpy in 2020 following the expansion in Pit 112.The two-week strike - initiated by Skorpion Zinc's mining contractor, Basil Read - affected the required waste-stripping process and disrupted the ore mining schedule at Skorpion's...