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MELBOURNE, Aug 12 (Reuters) - Belgium's Nyrstar NYR.BR said on Monday it had shut down its zinc-lead smelter furnace in Port Pirie, Australia, after an incident in the second disruption at the plant this year.
An unidentified incident occurred in the hearth in the primary smelter and caused a forced shutdown of the plant with no injuries, Nyrstar said in a statement to Reuters.
"Repairs will result in the (furnace) being down for a number of weeks and a number of options are being considered including a re-start of the sinter plant to maintain production," the company said.
Port Pirie produced 160,000 tonnes of lead in 2018, according to data on Nyrstar's website.
Nyrstar restarted production Port Pirie in late July after a nearly two-month shutdown because of an unplanned outage at the site's blast furnace that disrupted its shipments to customers.
Nyrstar lost 30,000 tonnes of lead metal due to the outage, the company said on July 19. trading house Trafigura TRAFGF.UL took over the troubled smelter last month.