Malaysia Smelting mining its own business

IN Pulau Indah, a once-sleepy fisherman island turned industrial estate in Malaysia's Klang district where the country's largest and busiest port resides, a bold experiment for the multi-generational tin business is shaping up - to convert a lead smelting facility into a tin smelter.

"We are the only joker in the world to do this. The world is watching us," says Patrick Yong, chief executive of the world's third-largest refined tin maker Malaysia Smelting Corp (MSC), as he laughs, not nervously, but with unmistakable audacity.

If the state-of-the-art plant in Port Klang - a big leap from MSC's sole existing "archaic" facility in Butterworth, Penang - lives up to its promise to cut not only cost, but dust emission and off-gases, and lift capacity by over 50 per cent…