Ceased some years ago, operates a powerful metallurgical complex for the production of copper, zinc and lead of the Peruvian city of La Oroya can resume its work in full: the owners of the plant (the owners of the company «Doe Run Peru»), previously considered a term liquidation of the enterprise, decided to hold its restructuring. This Representatives of the organization told reporters after the recently held meeting of the Board of Directors, on which was discussed about the further fate of the production.
The company «Doe Run» — one of the largest operators in the global market of non-ferrous metals — was founded in 1864. Its main products — lead (the organization has a share of about 1/10 of the total capacity of the market myrrh), copper and zinc. In addition, the capacity of the enterprise produces bismuth, selenium, tellurium, indium, antimony and precious metals — gold and silver.
The above-mentioned complex in La Oroya was built in three stages in 1922, it was constructed copper smelting unit, even after 6 years — commissioned the production of lead, and at the beginning of the 50s — running a workshop for zinc casting. Design capacities are calculated to produce (per year) 122 thous. Tons of lead, 70,000 tons of copper and 45,000 tonnes of zinc, however, due to the concentration of such a large number of enterprises on a relatively small area, the shop complex, as a rule, work only with partial load.
The current owner of the metallurgical enterprises of La Oroya — the company «Doe Run» — has acquired an asset in October 1997 (with the copper mine Cobriza) for 254.5 million US dollars. By the time the equipment worn out workshop complex (the former owner is not too worried about its modernization), and the city, the ecological state of which left much to be desired, hit the top ten most polluted localities of the planet. Under the pressure of these circumstances, in 2009 the management «Doe Run» was forced to scale back production. Recently, part of the facilities (for the production of lead and zinc) was again put into operation, but the oldest portion — production of copper (since incomplete stage of modernization of equipment) — and has not been put into operation, and in respect of the complex management considered the most pessimistic options developments.