Palabora copper smelter

The Palabora smelter was commissioned in 1966 as a conventional green feed reverberatory furnace smelter. In 1987 a Contop cyclone smelting unit was added to the reverberatory furnace to increase its smelting capacity, which had previously limited copper production capacity. Problems in commissioning the Contop unit resulted in reduced overall smelting capacity and the Contop unit was removed from service in August 1990. A major upgrade project was completed during 1993 involving three new...