Sustainable development

Our Skorpion Zinc mine and processing plant in Southern Namibia

Project ‘No Overflow’ at our Skorpion Zinc refinery in Namibia has resulted in preventing overflows from process evaporation ponds into the environment, while simultaneously reducing water consumption by 1,000 m³ per day.

Lined evaporation dams or ponds, designed to contain effluent from the plant, were installed at the refinery during construction. During the operation of the facility the volume of process water entering the dams exceeded the anticipated amount, resulting in the periodic overflow of the dams.

To address this, water-flow meters were installed on all major pipelines to improve understanding of the site’s water balance. This detailed knowledge soon revealed opportunities for improved recycling of process water. Subsequently, Skorpion spent more than $1.5 million refining the water balance and installing reverse-osmosis plants to treat process water for re-use.

Project 'No Overflow' has successfully eliminated liquid and solid effluent discharges into the evaporation ponds, thereby preventing future overflows into the environment. A further $1 million has been allocated for emptying, cleaning and repairing the ponds.