Horsehead Announces Location for New Zinc and Diversified Metals Production Facility

Horsehead Corp, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Pittsburgh-based Horsehead Holding Corp., has announced plans to build a zinc and diversified metals production facility in Rutherford County, N.C.

"We are excited to begin the project and are pleased with the support we have received in North Carolina at the state and local level. We look forward to becoming an important part of the local economy, providing construction jobs over the next two years and manufacturing jobs thereafter, Jim Hensler, Horsehead president and CEO, says. “This facility will produce zinc at much lower costs and provide opportunities for the company not only to serve its traditional hot-dip-galvanizing market, but also to serve the broader market for special high-grade zinc and the continuous galvanizing market as well."

Horsehead has begun the process of submitting environmental permit applications. The company expects to begin clearing and grading the site in the near future. Construction of the facility could be completed as early as the third quarter of 2013. Horsehead’s existing zinc smelter in Monaca, Pa., will continue to operate until the new plant is fully commissioned. Horsehead plans to continue non-smelter operations in Monaca and is exploring alternative uses for the facility.

The cost of the new facility will be around $350 million. The plant will use a lower-cost, environmentally friendly solvent extraction and electrowinning technology to selectively remove and refine valuable metals from electric arc furnace-based feed and other recycled materials into special high-grade zinc and other metal concentrates containing silver, copper and lead. 

The new plant will be capable of producing special high-grade (SHG) zinc and continuous-galvanizing grade (CGG) in addition to the Prime Western (PW) grade that the company currently produces.
Horsehead estimates the new plant's nominal operating level to be more than 150,000 tons per year of zinc. The new zinc plant will eventually replace the existing 140,000 tons per year smelter in Monaca, Pa., and will be fed with waelz oxide from the company's EAF dust recycling plants and galvanizer skimmings.