environmental friendly

Have a look at the latest posting on the Intec Q & A forum.

Hi, I am an Intec shareholder and a resident of Port Pirie, South Australia (where the Nyrstar lead smelter is based). I have to be careful here because I have an interest in your company and I am also a member of the CANdo committee, part of the Tenby10 project (aimed at lowering the lead levels in our city's children).

I hope you can answer my questions in regards to your lead extraction process, in particular the environmental impact. Also, please excuse my ignorance on the issues involved, as smelting and metallurgy are not my forte! Please do your best to answer any or all of the following...

1. Does your lead extraction process have any environmental impacting emissions, such as the lead dust that our community currently experience?

2. Would a company like Nyrstar benefit from using your process and could they still achieve their output, would it be feasible?

3. If not, what would be required for a company such as Nystar to "gear up" to use your technology OR what would the Intec Process need to achieve, before Nystar could use it?

4. Would it be a "better" process (in regards to resource recovery, emissions etc) than they are currently using?

I think you see where I am going here... Would residents of Port Pirie and Nyrstar benefit from your process?

Thank you in advance.

RE: Intec Lead Process

Response from Dave Sammut, Intec Ltd

Hi Paul.

Intec has never sat down with Nyrstar to talk about their Port Pirie operations, and thus we aren't in a position to judge the project parameters that would produce an equivalent Intec Process plant. For the purposes of this discussion, then, we will hold to generalisations.

The Intec Process has been designed and development as a more economic and more environmentally friendly alternative technology to conventional smelting for the recovery of a range of metals from both oxide and sulphide feedstocks. An independent Life Cycle Analysis of the Intec Copper Process application of the technology conducted by the CSIRO supported the environmental advantages of the Intec Process over competing technologies (both existing and under development).

An atmospheric leaching technology, the Intec Process has no liquid or air emissions, and leaves only a stable iron oxide residue that is safe for disposal. This residue also has the potential to be saleable, which would make the Intec Process in such instances effectively a zero-waste technology.

Additionally, the Intec Process can commonly extract value from feedstocks that are unavailable to conventional smelters - feedstocks that are too low-grade, polymetallic or that are contaminated with deleterious elements such as arsenic - with high recoveries of most or all of the contained metals.

The Intec Process is capable of recovering high purity lead metal by direct electrowinning of mixed-halide process liquors means that the technology can compete effectively against smelting. However, such competition would typically be the selection of the Intec Process for new lead production capacity, rather than for replacing existing smelters. Existing facilities already have substantial sunk capital invested, and therefore have a disincentive to be changing processes, particularly where the new technology is so radically different from what they have installed.