China Tin to Install Ausmelt Smelter

LIUZHOU, Dec. 11 -- Liuzhou China Tin will be the fourth major tin producer worldwide to adopt Ausmelt smelting technology. Two of the world's biggest producers, Minsur and Yunnan Tin, already run large Ausmelt plants and Bolivia's Vinto smelter will install a new unit in 2010-2011.

Ausmelt said in a statement today that under the contract with China Tin it would "supply tin smelting technology, design and technical services and core equipment for a tin smelter with a capacity to allow the production of around 20,000 tonnes a year of tin metal." The contract price was confidential but "would provide material revenues and profits over the next two to three years."

The new smelter will be alongside the existing facility at Liabing City in China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. China Tin produced 12,037 tonnes of refined tin in 2008. Ausmelt said the contract was its 13th overall in China and followed the recent signing of a new Chinese copper smelter project in November.