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December 2015
24 December 2015
The Indian justice administrator has suspended an order in support of miner VV Minerals regarding the payment of central excise duty for mining of beach sand minerals, following a complaint raised by the Commissioner of Central Excise.
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24 December 2015
Graphite prices flatten while fluorspar sinks; US TiO2 suppliers announce hikes.
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21 December 2015
Alkane has taken a step closer to full project approval in New South Wales. Dubbo now requires only an environmental protection licence.
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21 December 2015
Three of the world’s largest titanium trioxide producers have now increased prices for 2016 after a market rebound failed to materialise.
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21 December 2015
The company has finally become a supplier of mineral sands following its first zircon sale to China as part of its offtake with Tricoastal. Having completed its MSP commissioning, first leucoxene sales are expected in February next year.
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18 December 2015
Company ups cost of Ti-Pure range after reporting severe global price declines.
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18 December 2015
Fluorspar and graphite prices expected to remain stable to year end but mineral sands likely to post declines.
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17 December 2015
Chinese TiO2 consolidation to continue; chloride route breakthroughs needed and overcapacity must be addressed.
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17 December 2015
Following the company’s acquisition of Jacana’s adjacent resource in Tanzania, drilling was carried out at Strandline’s project immediately. The company said the project revealed “exciting potential” and that it expects assay results at the start of next year to confirm this.
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17 December 2015
The company’s Kuranakh mine has been under review since 2014, and further deterioration in the ilmenite and iron ore markets have forced IRC to take production offline either until the market recovers or a buyer can be found.
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16 December 2015
The soft market outlook for mineral sands has led Iluka to delay some capital expenditures into 2016. Among other comments, the company said that highly leveraged producers are engaging in distressed selling practices.
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14 December 2015
Following the acquisition of additional mineralisation land rights from Image Resources in March, Diatreme has increased the ore reserve estimate for its Australian Cyclone zircon project as well as extended its mine life. Project go-ahead now rests on EPA assessment, which is currently in progress.
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14 December 2015
Having secured exclusive rights to the titanium dioxide processing technology, Neometals will now be responsible for developing and commercialising the process, which it says has a competitive edge over existing TIO2 flowsheets.
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11 December 2015
Gloomy near term outlook for graphite; China’s TiO2 prices fall again.
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10 December 2015
Overcapacity forces producers to accept lower bids for pigment chemical.
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10 December 2015
Experts at the Deyang Phosphor-Titanium Chemical Green Development Forum in China anticipate that consolidation in titanium dioxide will continue while the country attempts to clean up its sulphate-route production and drive breakthroughs in the chloride-route. However, speakers warned that unless overcapacity is addressed, prices will continue to deteriorate.
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08 December 2015
The Advanced Research Centre Chemical Building Blocks Consortium plans to invest €11m a year into addressing sustainable demand for energy and materials in the future as urbanisation increases and the global population is expected to reach 9bn by 2050.
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07 December 2015
Kenmare’s largest shareholder has indicated that it will not accept Iluka’s takeover proposal, leading Iluka to decide against making a concrete offer for the Irish mineral sands producer. Kenmare will now look to the market as it attempts to its cut debt at the behest of its lenders.
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04 December 2015
The company began production at its Keysbrook project in Western Australia, intending to complete first sales of leucoxene and zircon before the end of the year. Pending positive testing results carried out by Jinzhou, MZI anticipates a large scale offtake agreement with the Chinese company.
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04 December 2015
Antimony and zircon prices fall in China while lithium prices rise in South America.
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03 December 2015
The Australia-based company entered the mineral sands market last month with first production of leucoxene and zircon concentrate and now hopes to complete its first product sales in December 2015, ahead of its previously anticipated schedule of early 2016.
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03 December 2015
Weakness in ex-works prices yet to drag export values south of ranges, despite soft trading conditions.
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02 December 2015
The company is in the process of developing its oil sands tailings recovery process, which will enable it to eliminate some of the challenges associated with tailings ponds and to extract valuable commodities such as ilmenite, leucoxene and zircon.
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02 December 2015
To target waste production, increase recycling and preserve natural resources, the EC has published a number of legislative proposals which will affect industrial mineral-consuming industries such as glass and plastics.
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01 December 2015
The Dutch paints and coatings manufacturer is focusing on strengthening its position in North America by opening a research centre in Ohio. This follows the company's previous announcement that it was to invest $3m in a Texas research facility.
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01 December 2015
The Chemours Co., the recent spin-off of global chemical firm DuPont, has announced plans to cut 400 positions globally in addition to around 200 positions at its Reactive Metals Solutions site in New York State as part of its plan to improve EBITDA and become more competitive as the pigment market remains weak.
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November 2015
27 November 2015
Market facing “COBAL” list of challenges; closer cooperation with value chain needed.
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27 November 2015
Australian mineral sands explorer Sheffield Resources aims to raise capital through a placement and share purchase plan in order to fund a bankable feasibility study at its Thunderbird mineral sands project, following the release of a pre-feasibility study last month.
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27 November 2015
Iodine, magnesia, potash, rare earths and TiO2 prices all down on earlier in the year, as oversupply and weak Chinese consumption erode markets.
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25 November 2015
The company is confident in the potential economics of the Bidaminna project in the North Perth Basin owing to the potential of producing high value leucoxene products using large volume dredge mining with a low slime content.
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25 November 2015
The UK’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, has announced the “biggest housebuilding programme since the 1970s” in his Autumn Statement. If carried through, the pledge is expected to provide a boost for industrial minerals that go into bricks such as fire clay and kaolin and for products such as titanium dioxide that go into pigments to make paints.
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25 November 2015
The world’s most populated country remains an important titanium dioxide market for the Australian mineral sands producer, despite a growth in the consumption of domestically produced ilmenite in the country.
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25 November 2015
Stable levels of TiO2 production are expected in the coming years as China’s rate of GDP growth falls. Industry consolidation looks set to continue, however, and a significant shift to the chloride-route process of making the pigment material is still some way off.
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24 November 2015
India’s Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Amendment Act (MMDR), 2015 came into force earlier this year. Heavy mineral sands, such as ilmenite and zircon, are included in this act under the atomic minerals list. Yet, India’s largest producer of these minerals is calling on the Indian government to remove them from the atomic minerals list to encourage foreign direct investment.
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23 November 2015
Domestic prices sag as export demand dries up and overcapacity weighs on market.
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23 November 2015
Rising capacity and slowing overseas demand is threatening to trap all but the largest Chinese TiO2 producers in a cycle of loss, one leading industry body has warned.
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23 November 2015
The mining giant touted the “robust” medium and long term fundamentals of the TiO2 market as it explained how market alignment necessitated taking a number of facilities offline in the short term.
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20 November 2015
Automotive coatings represent an important consuming industry for titanium dioxide, but overcapacity in China and slowing economic growth is likely to erode demand from the sector in the next few years.
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20 November 2015
The leading Chinese TiO2 producer said it expects to sell 350,000 tpa TiO2 in the period 2016-2018 and is working to ramp up its capacity to 500,000 tpa of the chemical, half of which will be chloride-route material.
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20 November 2015
Disconnects between market conditions, customer requirements and the performance of TiO2 suppliers are hampering the sector’s ability to deal with soft demand and weak prices, delegates at the meeting in Shanghai heard.
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19 November 2015
A joint investment with the Minhong Group, Axalta hopes to stay at the forefront of coatings research in China and provide support and technology to the growing light vehicle OEM and commercial vehicle markets.
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16 November 2015
The company hopes to supply the European titanium dioxide feedstock market, which it says is in significant deficit, and for which Nordic Mining expects demand to grow in the future.
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11 November 2015
The company, which changed its name from Orbite Aluminae Inc. to Orbite Technologies earlier this year, has been given the green light by US officials to pursue the commercial application of its fly ash processing technology. The innovation transforms fly ash into a high value mineral feedstock by extracting all the valuable constituents, including rare earths and alumina.
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11 November 2015
The global chemicals manufacturer will create two new business units, paper and water, and oilfield mining solutions, to streamline its portfolio starting on 1 January 2016, which is likely to result in job cuts before the end of the year.
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10 November 2015
The company, which mines garnet, ilmenite, zircon and rutile at its Tormin project in South Africa, will be expanding its HMS operation after obtaining the official documents to do so. It hopes that the long-term plan to extend its development will underpin the economic viability of its resource.
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10 November 2015
The mineral sands exploration company has demonstrated strong rutile mineralisation in and around its project, as well as higher rutile content at its recently discovered Boudreau ilmenite showing.
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09 November 2015
The West African nation has had a difficult existence for the duration of the Ebola epidemic, but the outbreak has now officially ended in the country, according to the WHO. While the country’s economy has been damaged by the spread of the virus and thousands have died, positive long-term influences, especially in healthcare structure and organisation, may serve to sweeten the painful legacy of the disease.
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06 November 2015
The mineral sands junior is targeting full production during the current quarter and initial sales by December 2015, following the successful processing of its first batch of heavy mineral concentrate through a Picton-based separation plant.
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06 November 2015
On a recent site visit to Sierra Leone, the UK-listed TiO2 feedstock miner told IM that it is expecting flat, followed by steadily rising prices in currently depressed titanium-based chemicals markets, potentially marking a reversal of the continued declines since 2012.
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06 November 2015
In its first quarter of standalone operations, DuPont’s spin-off company Chemours has reported a net loss as the weak TiO2 market continues to weigh heavily on results.
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05 November 2015
While y-o-y volumes in its TiO2 business have seen a slight improvement, pigment prices have continued to fall resulting in a net loss. On a sequential basis, the segment continued to deteriorate as revenue, prices and volumes all experienced a decline.
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04 November 2015
The Chinese TiO2 producer reported a drop in turnover and profit for the quarter despite significantly higher results for the first nine months of the year compared to 2014. The company now aims to position itself as China’s leading domestic supplier of chloride-route TiO2 as the country pushes for greater self-sufficiency in the market.