NPM Silmet AS is a

rare-earth The rare-earth elements (REE), also called the rare-earth metals or rare earths, and sometimes the lanthanides or lanthanoids (although scandium and yttrium, which do not belong to this series, are usually included as rare earths), are a set of ...

processor located in

Sillamäe Sillamäe (Estonian for 'Bridge Hill'; also known by the Germanised names of ''Sillamäggi'' or ''Sillamägi'') is a town in Ida-Viru County in the northeastern part of Estonia, on the southern coast of the Gulf of Finland. It has a population o ...

Estonia Estonia, officially the Republic of Estonia, is a country in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, and to the east by Ru ...

. It is a subsidiary of Neo Performance Materials.

History

Pre-war history and World War II

History of Silmet dates back to 1926 when Swedish-Norwegian '' Eestimaa Õlikonsortsium'' (; ), controlled by Marcus Wallenberg, was established to build a

shale oil extraction Shale oil extraction is an industrial process for unconventional oil production. This process converts kerogen in oil shale into shale oil by pyrolysis, hydrogenation, or thermal dissolution. The resultant shale oil is used as fuel oil or ...

plant in Sillamäe. For

shale oil Shale oil is an unconventional oil produced from oil shale rock fragments by pyrolysis, hydrogenation, or thermal dissolution. These processes convert the organic matter within the rock (kerogen) into synthetic oil and gas. The resulting oil c ...

production, the consortium built a tunnel oven in 1928. However, due to the

Great Depression The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...

, production halted in 1930 and was restarted only in 1936 by the reorganized consortium called ''Baltic Oil Company''. The second tunnel oven was added in 1938. The main product was gasoline. After the

Soviet occupation During World War II, the Soviet Union occupied and annexed several countries effectively handed over by Nazi Germany in the secret Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of 1939. These included the eastern regions of Poland (incorporated into three differe ...

started in 1940, the plant was

nationalized Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization contrasts with priv ...

according to the 30 May 1941 Moscow Agreement between the Soviet Union and Sweden. Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941 and the industry's infrastructure was largely destroyed by retreating Soviet forces. During the subsequent

German occupation German-occupied Europe, or Nazi-occupied Europe, refers to the sovereign countries of Europe which were wholly or partly militarily occupied and civil-occupied, including puppet states, by the (armed forces) and the government of Nazi Germany at ...

, the plant was restored and subordinated to a company named Baltische Öl GmbH. However, most of its facilities were destroyed during the war.

Soviet era

Restoration of the plant restarted immediately after Soviet troops took control in Estonia in 1944. In 1945, the ''Glavgastopprom Oil Shale Processing Plant'' was established based on the existing plant. In 1946, the

Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union The Council of Ministers of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics ( rus, Совет министров СССР, r=Sovet Ministrov SSSR, p=sɐˈvʲet mʲɪˈnʲistrəf ˌɛsˌɛsˌɛsˈɛr), sometimes abbreviated as Sovmin or referred to as the ...

approved the establishment of the diversified enterprise ''Kombinat No 7'' on the basis of the ''Glavgastopprom Oil Shale Processing Plant'' for mining and processing

Dictyonema ''Dictyonema'' is a genus of mainly tropical basidiolichens in the family Hygrophoraceae. The ''Dictyonema'' symbiosis Most lichens are a symbiosis between an ascomycota, ascomycete fungus and a photosynthetic green alga. However, a small perc ...

argillite Argillite () is a fine-grained sedimentary rock composed predominantly of Friability, indurated clay particles. Argillaceous rocks are basically lithified muds and Pelagic sediment, oozes. They contain variable amounts of silt-sized particles. T ...

ore (a type of

oil shale Oil shale is an organic-rich Granularity, fine-grained sedimentary rock containing kerogen (a solid mixture of Organic compound, organic chemical compounds) from which liquid hydrocarbons can be produced. In addition to kerogen, general compos ...

). The new plant was built mainly by using labour of war prisoners. In 1947 when the new factory was built, the code name ''Military Unit No 77960'' was assigned to the ''Kombinat No 7''. In 1955, a new code name ''Enterprise POB 22'' was assigned. During the Soviet period, the enterprise was renamed several times and its names included ''Factory No 7'', ''Enterprise P.O.B. P-6685'', ''Sillamäe Metallurgical Plant'', and ''Sillamäe Chemical Metallurgical Production Association''. During 1946–1952, Dictyonema argillite was mined and used for

uranium oxide Uranium oxide is an oxide of the element uranium. The metal uranium forms several oxides: * Uranium dioxide or uranium(IV) oxide (UO2, the mineral uraninite or pitchblende) * Diuranium pentoxide or uranium(V) oxide (U2O5) * Uranium trioxide or ...

production. Later richer uranium ores were imported to the Sillamäe plant from various locations of

Central Asia Central Asia is a region of Asia consisting of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The countries as a group are also colloquially referred to as the "-stans" as all have names ending with the Persian language, Pers ...

and the

Eastern Bloc The Eastern Bloc, also known as the Communist Bloc (Combloc), the Socialist Bloc, the Workers Bloc, and the Soviet Bloc, was an unofficial coalition of communist states of Central and Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America that were a ...

, mainly from mines in

Czechoslovakia Czechoslovakia ( ; Czech language, Czech and , ''Česko-Slovensko'') was a landlocked country in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland beca ...

East Germany East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was a country in Central Europe from Foundation of East Germany, its formation on 7 October 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with West Germany (FRG) on ...

Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

and

Romania Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern and Southeast Europe. It borders Ukraine to the north and east, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Bulgaria to the south, Moldova to ...

. In 1982, the plant began the production of reactor-grade

enriched uranium Enriched uranium is a type of uranium in which the percent composition of uranium-235 (written 235U) has been increased through the process of isotope separation. Naturally occurring uranium is composed of three major isotopes: uranium-238 (23 ...

(2–4.4% ²³⁵U) in form of UO₂. Uranium production at Sillamäe continued to supply nuclear materials for the Soviet

nuclear power plant A nuclear power plant (NPP), also known as a nuclear power station (NPS), nuclear generating station (NGS) or atomic power station (APS) is a thermal power station in which the heat source is a nuclear reactor. As is typical of thermal power st ...

s and

weapon A weapon, arm, or armament is any implement or device that is used to deter, threaten, inflict physical damage, harm, or kill. Weapons are used to increase the efficacy and efficiency of activities such as hunting, crime (e.g., murder), law ...

facilities until 1989. In the years of 1950–1989, the plant produced about 98,681 tonnes of uranium (mostly as U₃O₈) and 1354.7 tonnes of enriched uranium. In 1970, the plant started to process loparite ore from the

Kola Peninsula The Kola Peninsula (; ) is a peninsula in the extreme northwest of Russia, and one of the largest peninsulas of Europe. Constituting the bulk of the territory of Murmansk Oblast, it lies almost completely inside the Arctic Circle and is border ...

producing

tantalum Tantalum is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ta and atomic number 73. It is named after Tantalus, a figure in Greek mythology. Tantalum is a very hard, ductility, ductile, lustre (mineralogy), lustrous, blue-gray transition ...

and

niobium Niobium is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol Nb (formerly columbium, Cb) and atomic number 41. It is a light grey, crystalline, and Ductility, ductile transition metal. Pure niobium has a Mohs scale of mineral hardness, Mohs h ...

. Later, it also started to extract

rare-earth metal The rare-earth elements (REE), also called the rare-earth metals or rare earths, and sometimes the lanthanides or lanthanoids (although scandium and yttrium, which do not belong to this series, are usually included as rare earths), are a set of ...

oxides.

1990–recent time

In 1990, the enterprise stopped processing uranium. It was renamed Silmet and was reorganized as state-owned

joint-stock company A joint-stock company (JSC) is a business entity in which shares of the company's stock can be bought and sold by shareholders. Each shareholder owns company stock in proportion, evidenced by their shares (certificates of ownership). Shareho ...

. In 1997, the company was privatized. Following the privatization, the company went under control of former prime minister Tiit Vähi. In 2002, Austrian Treibacher Industrie AG became a minority shareholder. In 2005, Vähi sold a controlling stake in Silmet to Russian related Swiss company Zimal SA, but bought it back in 2010. In April 2011, Molycorp bought 90% stake in Silmet for US$89 million. The company was renamed Molycorp Silmet. Remaining 10% was acquired by Molycorp in October 2011. In June 2015, Silmet's parent company Molycorp filed for bankruptcy. New owner of Silmet is Toronto-based Neo Performance Materials Corp. Correspondingly, Silmet was renamed NPM Silmet in September 2016. In 2019, NPM Silmet OÜ received recognition as the best enterprise in Ida-Virumaa and the best enterprise of Estonian chemical industry.

Operations

Silmet operates three factories: metallurgical factory, rare metals factory, and rare-earth metals factory. Its main products are niobium and tantalum.

References

External links

*{{official website Metal companies of Estonia Chemical companies of Estonia Rare earth companies Sillamäe Chemical companies of the Soviet Union Companies nationalised by the Soviet Union