Business case
Our client, a major zinc smelter, was facing decreasing profitability caused by a structural shift in its core market environment. This was exacerbated by highly volatile market conditions, limiting the company’s ability to make adequate distributions to its shareholders.
A zinc smelter has to secure long-term mining supply agreements with miners to stay competitive. Being able to process different zinc ore qualities allows greater flexibility and enables the smelter to generate higher profitability in the long term. Zinc recycling is also starting to become a profitable alternative, helping to overcome sourcing difficulties due to many mining projects coming to the end of their lives in developed countries.
We undertook a complete strategic and financial assessment of our client’s operations in order to identify ways to improve the smelter’s profitability.