Outotec has today acquired a 19.9% interest in Ausmelt shares from Dr John Floyd, and Ausmelt has now received an unconditional off-market takeover bid by Outotec, for all of its ordinary shares at A$0.85 per share. The Ausmelt Board of Directors says it “will consider the terms and conditions of the Bidder’s Statement lodged by Outotec before making any further announcements in regard to its recommendation to shareholders on the Outotec Takeover Offer.”
Ausmelt designs and supplies Top Submerged Lance (TSL) Smelting Technology. TSL is a high-intensity bath smelting technique with wide application in the non-ferrous, ferrous, and precious metals industry. With over 25 years in the metals industry, Ausmelt has achieved commercialisation of the process globally with the installation of more than thirty TSL furnaces processing copper, lead, zinc, nickel and PGM concentrates and waste materials.
Outotec says that one of its strategic growth initiatives is acquisition of complementary technologies. Ausmelt’s TSL technology complements Outotec’s smelting technology portfolio. Outotec has currently flash smelting technology for copper and nickel concentrate smelting in large-scale plants, whereas Ausmelt’s TSL method is suitable also for a variety of other feed materials, such as ferrous metals, zinc, lead and tin concentrates, zinc bearing residues, and various secondary and waste materials. The significant benefit of the process is that it enables the recovery of valuable metals from byproducts.
“Ausmelt has an excellent strategic fit with Outotec. Once completed, this acquisition will improve our technology portfolio in environmentally sound smelting technologies, and allows us to offer smaller scale copper and nickel smelters as well as solutions for recycling, secondary materials and process wastes. We believe that within Outotec there are significant growth opportunities for the Ausmelt technology,” says Tapani Järvinen, CEO of Outotec.
China has been a dominant market for Ausmelt in recent years. Only yesterday it announced that it had won its second tin smelter contract in China and that this was its 13th contract in China and followed the signing of a new Chinese copper smelter project in November.
The new tin deal means Ausmelt will 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 t/y of tin metal to China Tin Co. That company is the second largest tin producer in China and the new smelter will be located alongside its existing facility at Liabing City in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. The contract price is confidential but will provide material revenues and profits to Ausmelt over the next two to three years.
Ausmelt Managing Director, Paul Abbott, said: “This project has further cemented Ausmelt top submerged lance smelting technology as the technology of choice in the global tin industry. Four of the top ten tin producers have now chosen Ausmelt technology. On completion of this project the total global production of tin metal from Ausmelt furnaces will exceed 120,000 t/y or about a third of the total global production”.
China Tin Vice-General Manager, Liao Chuntu said that China Tin had made this critical decision on technology after extensive investigation of all of the technology options available. “This project is a critical part of China Tin’s strategic plan and we will be working closely with Ausmelt to ensure a successful outcome to the project”.
This project will further strengthen Ausmelt.s order book. Ausmelt now has more than A$50 million in contracted revenue yet to be recognised.