Porto Vesme ISF to close

摘要

The Porto Vesme metallurgical complex in Italy has been in the news again this month, Glencore finally announcing this time that the ISF (Imperial Smelting Furnace) will close. Although the company did not give a closure date itself, Reuters reported a union official claiming that the ISF would close by the end of this month. While Italy's high electricity prices have been the bane of Porto Vesme's electrolytic zinc smelter, high coke prices have blighted Porto Vesme's ISF. At US245 dollars/t fob China, coke prices are now about 40 percent less than they were in the first half of last year. But they are still about twice as high as they were in the first half of 2003. As an approximate rule of thumb, ISFs consume one tonne of coke for every tonne of zinc produced (half a tonne of lead is produced at the same time).