Silmet

NPM Silmet AS is a rare earth processor located in Sillamäe, Estonia. It is a subsidiary of Neo Performance Materials.

History of Silmet dates back to 1926 when Swedish-Norwegian Eestimaa Õlikonsortsium (Swedish: Estländska Oljeskifferkonsortiet; English: Estonian Oil Consortium), controlled by Marcus Wallenberg, was established to build a shale oil extraction plant in Sillamäe. For shale oil production, the consortium built a tunnel oven in 1928. However, due to Great Depression-linked recession 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 started in 1940, the plant was nationalized according to the 30 May 1941 Moscow Agreement between the Soviet Union and Sweden.

At the period of the German occupation of Estonia during World War II the plant was returned to the former owners and continued its operations in cooperation with Germans. However, most of its facilities were destroyed during the war.

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 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 argillite ore (a type of oil shale). 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.