definition
strict definition
smelting
Industrial facilities that extract metals from ores through chemical processes at high temperatures.
Smelting plants are places where raw ores, brought in from a mine, are reduced to the elemental metals in them through a chemical process at high temperatures.
The process separates metal from the ore in which it occurs. Simply melting a supply of already refined metal does not perform the same extraction.
A foundry melts metal and casts it into specified shapes. Smelting and casting can be associated operations, but the ore-extraction purpose distinguishes the smelting plant.