Philippine Associated Smelting and
Refining Corporation
LIDE, Isabel, Leyte
THE COMPANY
Incorporated in 1976, PASAR is the only copper
smelter and refinery in the Philippines.
It was the first of the eleven major industrial
projects of the Marcos government, created to
provide the local mines with an alternative
destination for their concentrates and add value
to the country’s copper exports.
THE COMPANY
From an original capacity of 138,000 MTPY in
1983, plant expansion boosted production by
25% to 172,500 MTPY copper cathodes in
October 1989. This has been expanded further
to 215,000 MTPY, upon conversion of the
refinery to the ISA Process
As part of the country’s privatization program,
Glencore International now owns majority of the
shares in 1999.
PRODUCTS
Electrolytic Copper Cathodes 3rd Party Copper Anodes
• PSR Isabel Brand – ISA Cathode, LME- • Surplus production of anodes due to extra
and SHFE- Registered capacity of the Smelter since its expansion
in 2007
• 220,000 DMt/year
• 110,000 DMt/year
PRODUCTS
Dore Metal (18-21% Au, ~80% Ag) Sulfuric Acid (98% H2SO4) Selenium Powder (99.5% Se)
• 125 Mt/year • 1,200 Mt/year • 105 Mt/year
Dore Metal
Copper Telluride (15-21% Te) Iron Concentrate (~42% Fe) Gypsum (CaSO4)
• 80 Mt/year • 850,000 Mt/year • 10,000 Mt/year
Dore Metal
THE PLANT
The PASAR plant complex is situated in Leyte
Industrial Development Estate in Isabel, Leyte, 530
kilometers southeast of Manila. It is a coastal town
in which terrain is generally flat lands.
It occupies 80 hectares and sits adjacent to the
Philippine Phosphate Fertilizer Plant (Philphos), a
complementary industry.
THE PLANT
THE PLANT
The location was chosen for its:
• Accessibility to the Tongonan geothermal plant,
60 kilometers away
• Accessibility to a deep water harbor – Dupon
Bay
• Accessibility to copper concentrate suppliers
• Accessibility to refined copper markets
THE PLANT
MATERIAL HANDLING
Raw Material
Copper concentrates come from local and
foreign mines.
Brand Country Brand Country
Grasberg Indonesia Andina Chile
Batu Hijao Indonesia Osbourne Australia
Philex Philippines Isa Australia
Escondida Chile Eloise Australia
Oki Tedi Papua New Highland Canada
Guinea Valley
Chelopech Selwin Canada
MATERIAL HANDLING
Port Area and Unloading
Facility
MATERIAL HANDLING
• Port Area and Unloading Facility
The delivered concentrate is unloaded by the luffing crane
to a hopper. It is operated by one personnel.
A conveyor belt system delivers the concentrate from the
port to the Blending House.
Sampling is done in conveyor belt #5, by one personnel
from MLPQD, by increment method.
MATERIAL HANDLING
Luffing Crane
Conveyor Belts
Port Area
To Refinery
SFP
Casting
Wheel
Storage House
AF
CF
FSFE
Blending
House
Rotary
Drier
To Acid Plant
PRODUCTION
• Storage House
Wet concentrates are being
transported and stored in the
CSBH (Concentrate Storage and
Blending House) where they are
piled separately according to
supplier.
Unloading of the concentrates is done
by a semi-automatic
girder-tripper-scraper system.
They are unloaded into different
yards with respect to their brand
names.
PRODUCTION
• Storage House
A single payloader loads the
appropriate concentrate into a
hopper. It is transferred via belt
conveyor onto the Blending House.
Silica and coal which are necessary
fluxes in the process are
transported via belt conveyors or
dump trucks and are piled in the
stockyard beside the CSBH.
MATERIAL HANDLING
PRODUCTION
• Bin Blending House
Similar to the Storage
House, a
girder-tripper-scraper
system is used to lay
out the beds.
There is also only one
payloader, that loads
the blended
concentrates onto the
hoppers.
PRODUCTION
• Blending House
From the hopper, the blended concentrate is conveyed
onto a dynamic weigher, and then to a magnetic
separator to remove junk.
It is then again conveyed onto a vibrating screen which
has an aperture size 2”x2”. The undersize is led to the
smelter plant.
The fluxes are loaded by payloaders onto a hopper.
PRODUCTION
• Smelter – Flash Drier
Blended concentrates undergo drying in the Flash Dryer
assembly.
From 10% H2O to ~0.3% H2O, the requirement of the FSFE
PRODUCTION
• Smelter – Flash Drier
uses an auxiliary heavy oil combustion furnace as well as flue gases
from the anode furnace for the drying heat, to reach 700 0C
The dried concentrate then goes through a cage mill to reduce the
particle size of the concentrate to about 20-Mesh
PRODUCTION
• Smelter – Flash Drier
The dried ores from the cage mills are then sent to a dust
chamber maintained at around 60 0C to limit the
moisture of the concentrate at 0.3 % to 0.5% moisture
After the dust chamber, the concentrate is sent to the
cyclones situated at the ninth floor of the smelter
PRODUCTION
• Smelter – Flash Smelting Furnace with
Electrodes
The dried concentrate
are conveyed to the
Flash Smelting
Furnace with
Electrodes where the
copper concentrates
are smelted into
immiscible layers of
matte and slag.
PRODUCTION
• Smelter – Flash Smelting Furnace with
Electrodes
The Working area for the Smelter plant has 9 floors, the
main purpose of that is to have platforms and walkways
for the personnel.
Enriched oxygen is fed to the burner at around 50%. This
enhances the exothermic reactions further
PRODUCTION
• Smelter – Flash Smelting Furnace with
Electrodes
Matte phase (62-65% Cu)
PRODUCTION
• Smelter – Flash Smelting Furnace with
Electrodes
Slag phase
(1% Cu)
PRODUCTION
• Smelter – Flash Smelting Furnace with
Electrodes
Personnel manually dumps sacks of Soderberg Paste
onto the electrodes to replenish it.
Furnace Electrodes – to render the slag into better fluidity
(12500C)
- three cathodes connected by delta
configuration
PRODUCTION
• Smelter – Flash Smelting Furnace with
Electrodes
The FSFE is
fully-automated.
Manual labor is done
only in the tapping of
the matte and slag.
PRODUCTION
• Smelter – Flash Smelting Furnace with
Electrodes
Matte is tapped from the FSFE into
matte ladles and transported by
overhead cranes to the
converter furnace.
Slag is tapped and sprayed with
seawater to form granulated
slag. These are then collected
by dump trucks and piled in the
stock yard.
PRODUCTION
• Smelter – Converter Furnace
In the converter furnace, the
copper grade is raised to
98.5% by two processes; slag
blowing and copper blowing.
After the cranes have loaded the
matte, the CF is turned
manually by one personnel.
Then enriched oxygen is blown
to the tuyeres of the CF.
PRODUCTION
• Smelter – Converter Furnace
In slag blowing, the
skimmed slag is
received by a
ladle which then
pours it onto a
sand-bed.
Same goes for the
slag in copper
blowing, but it is
poured in a
different sand
bed.
PRODUCTION
• Smelter – Converter Furnace
Slag Blow
-White Metal
(72% Cu)
Copper Blow -
Blister Copper
(98.5% Cu)
PRODUCTION
• Smelter – Converter Furnace
End point determination is done by manual sampling.
For a cycle, only two CFs are loaded, a third is on hot
standby, while the fourth is under maintenance.
PRODUCTION
• Smelter – Converter Furnace
The final products in this
stage are blister copper
and slag. The blister
copper is fed to the
Anode Furnace while
the slag undergoes
drying before it is taken
to the Slag Flotation
Plant.
PRODUCTION
Smelter – Anode furnace
The blister copper is
skimmed from the CF
into a ladle and fed to
the Anode Furnace with
the use of a crane.
Further refining increases
the copper grade to
99.5%. These are then
tapped into launders
directed to the anode
casting wheel.
PRODUCTION
Smelter – Anode furnace
The anode furnace operates as an
extension of the copper blow in CF.
three major operations involved:
– In skimming, the AF is tilted to skim
the slag onto the ladles
– In blowing, the melt is blown with air
to reduce the sulfur in the blister to a
negligible level; however, the Cu in
the melt is also oxidized
– For this purpose, the poling stage is
blowing LPG into the furnace to
combust the oxygen in the melt
PRODUCTION
Smelter – Anode Casting
Molten copper is cast
into anodes .
PRODUCTION
Smelter – Anode Casting
Manual sampling in the
AF is done to check
for the endpoint to
serve as quality
control.
Manual inspection of cast
anodes is done to
check for defects.
PRODUCTION
Smelter – Slag Flotation Plant
In the Slag Flotation Plant, the
slag from the CF undergoes
crushing, magnetic
separation, grinding, and
flotation to recover white
metal and entrained metallic
copper.
The iron tailings are
transported to a stock pile
by dump trucks.
Slag Flotation Plant
Refinery/Tank House
To Dore Plant
By-Products
To CF
Electrolysis
Commercial Cells Mother Blanks
To Cathode Stockyard
From Smelter
PRODUCTION
Refinery
Independent operations occur
simultaneously in the refinery
section.
Mother blanks are prepared in the far
end of the tank house. They are
overlaid for deposition and
subsequently and harvested using
an overhead crane and are then
delivered to the stripping area.
PRODUCTION
Refinery – Commercial Cells
The anodes are transported
by forklifts to the Anode
Spacing and Reforming
Machine.
The reformed anodes are
picked up by a crane and
placed in the electrolytic
cells.
PRODUCTION
Refinery – Commercial Cells
The prepared mother blanks
are loaded into the
commercial cells by an
overhead crane.
These collect the copper as
electrolytic copper
cathodes after electrolysis.
PRODUCTION
Refinery – Commercial Cells
After electrolysis, the used up anodes are taken by the
overhead crane to the Scrap Anode Washing Machine.
Some of the washed scrap anodes are transferred to the
By-Products Section.
PRODUCTION
ISA Process
PASAR has converted their
electrorefining operations to the
ISA Process
The main difference from the old
process is the ISA Process does
away with the starter sheet
production; permanent reusable
cathodes are used to deposit the
copper for longer times to
produce the copper cathode
product
PRODUCTION
Refinery – Electrolysis
This section is concerned
with cell tending and
monitoring in between
electrode exchanges.
They are also in charge
of short-circuiting the
cells for cathode
harvest, anode charging,
cell repair, etc.
Normal: 400 – 800A
Shorted: >800A
PRODUCTION
Refinery – By-Products
The By-Products Section is concerned with the purification
of the electrolyte
This section employs electrowinning to remove excess Cu
as well as heavy metals such as Bi, Sn, and As from the
electrolyte. These are deposited onto the spent anodes
and are reverted to CF
The slimes recovered from the commercial cells during
electrode exchanges are also sent to this section to
remove Cu before it is sent to the Dore plant
PRODUCTION
Refinery – Dore Plant
This plant is constructed for the
recovery of Dore from the anode
slimes.
It uses a series of roasters and
furnaces to refine the Dore metal
from the de-copperized slimes.
The Dore plant also has a
Selenium recovery section for the
recovery of selenium as a powder
Dore Plant
MATERIAL STORAGE
SUPPORT SERVICES
Auxiliary – Acid Plant
Effluent gases from the
FSFE and CF are are
directed to a system of
waste heat boilers and
ducts directed to the Acid
Plant.
The Acid Plant produces
98% sulfuric acid, which
are stored temporarily in
storage tanks until sold.
SUPPORT SERVICES
Auxiliary - WANP
The weak acid bleed is
directed to the Waste
Acid Neutralization
Plant to produce an
environment-friendly
discharge.
Additional products include
gypsum and waste cakes
containing heavy metals.
SUPPORT SERVICES
Power Plant
PASAR gets 12-20% power reduction from NPC.
In case of emergency it has three backup
diesel generators, 1MWatt each.
it saves the plant up to 32-36 MW of power/day
This area also produces demineralized water
used as cooling water in waste heat boilers.
SUPPORT SERVICES
Oxygen Plant
The OP uses a number of air
separation plants; Cryogenic:
Kobe (Japanese) and Linde
(German), and
Non-Cryogenic: PSA and
Molecular Sieves
Its purpose is to produce
enriched oxygen to be used in
the smelter. It is capable of
producing 99% oxygen.
MATERIAL HANDLING
Quality Control
The Metallurgical Laboratory and Product Quality
Department is the one that conducts sampling
of the bought concentrate, matte, and other
products of the production processes.
This department conducts chemical analyses and
fire assaying.
SUPPORT SERVICES
Electronics / Instrumentation
The EI department is in charge of the
maintenance of all the monitoring equipment in
the plant. They do regular diagnostic tests on
the electronic testers, probes, panels, etc.
This department is also concerned with the
archiving of the operational data obtained by
the monitoring equipment.
SUPPORT SERVICES
Staff Housing
The company provides free lodging to its
employees. Employees can opt to stay in
bunkhouses near the plant site or staff housing
just a few minutes drive from the plant.
A guesthouse is available for the company’s
visitors and it also houses some of the
company’s employees.
SUPPORT SERVICES
Food, Medical and Recreation
There are two canteens inside the complex: the employees
canteen inside the plant and Teaspoon in the guesthouse.
Just outside the main gate is a medical facility which provides
free check-up for employees.
The guesthouse has a sports complex and swimming pool
where employees can relax and have fun. An alternate
venue for recreation is the clubhouse located in the staff
housing area. It has a bowling alley, an Olympic size
swimming pool and basketball court.
SUPPORT SERVICES
Safety
The plant has its own fire station.
A safety department is also formed, which is in
charged of formulating and giving out of safety
provisions for the company.
SUPPORT SERVICES
Safety
The company issues
personal protective
equipment to each
employee. The
material used for
the apparel is acid
resistant.
SUPPORT SERVICES
Community Relations
PASAR has actively contributed to the economic, social
and cultural development of the Eastern Visayas
region, more so to the local community of Isabel.
It subsidizes the LIDE Learning Center Inc. inside its
housing compound.
Environment
PASAR conducts regular
coastal sampling, to monitor
the condition of the
surrounding bodies of water.
They also check if their
effluent gas is in accordance
to DENR standards.
It has a fish
sanctuary and a
mini-zoo.
Personnel Requirements
Personnel Requirements
Personnel Requirements
Personnel Requirements
