BUTTERWORTH: The sun may be setting for Malaysia Smelting Corp Bhd’s (MSC) 120-year-old plant here, but the company’s overall prospects are still very much intact once its plant in Pulau Indah, Selangor, reaches full capacity to cater to the growing global demand for tin.

       MSC group chief operating officer Raveentiran Krishnan said the company’s new plant in Pulau Indah is ramping up production and more time is needed for it to reach full capacity.

       “We will slowly phase out our Butterworth smelting plant over the next two to three years and then move operations to Pulau Indah.

       “The old smelter will then be demolished to give way to a commercial and residential development in the area,” he told Bernama.

       Built in 1902 by The Straits Trading Co, the iconic Butterworth smelting plant, once a significant contributor to the country’s economy, has stood the test of time and witnessed various incidents like the World War II and 1985’s tin price crisis, which led to the collapse of the Association of Tin Producing Countries (ATPC).

       When the Japanese overran the plant during World War II, he said the plant’s tin smelting operations were completely stopped as it was used to produce parts for their war machinery including bicycle, motorcycles and vehicles to facilitate their war in Malaya.

       Despite the crash of the tin market in 1985, when ATPC was unable to rein in tin prices, MSC managed to continue its operations at the Butterworth plant against all odds.

       “The market crashed and tin price fell all the way down to RM20 per kg and it remained at that level until 2003.

       “Countries like China and Indonesia started producing more and more thus making the demand lower compared to supply,” he said.

       However, tin price began to recover around 2004 on strong demand due to its nature as a technology metal and in line with the rise in the manufacturing of telecommunications and consumer electronics to meet rising demand.

       The global technology boom is very much a catalyst for the tin market with its application not only limited to the traditional use of soldering and tin plating but also includes batteries in electric vehicles, solar panels and tin chemicals.

       “We are also working very hard to develop new applications for tin in cooperation with the UK-based International Tin Association as well as other parties to be able to sustain the use of tin.

       “In the post-application side, there is also growing momentum to recycle tin by extracting it from electronics components and tin chemicals so that we will not have to just focus on mining,” he said.

       In terms of production, he said MSC could currently smelt up to about 30,000 tonnes of tin concentrates per annum and would likely rise to about 40,000 tonnes in the near future.