RE: RE: REEs/RMs in Nova Scotia For those of you who might remember, a company called Tiomin was involved in mineral sands extraction in the Quebec-Labrador corridor way back in 1993-96. A positive feasability study was produced. Sadly, the market tanked, wiping out Tiomin's prospects there. The company did not give up, however.
They acquired more mineral sands properties with even better economics in Kenya. They also developed a new extraction technology with partners in Australia to produce high purity titanium oxide from ilmenite or rutile, a common component in mineral sands.
Unfortunatley, govenment red tape, cost overruns, delays, etc, forced the company to terminate the project.
I bring this up only to demonstrate that mineral sands projects are not only very susceptable to commodity price swings, but require solid offtake agreements from buyers. Buyers also require very long life-of-mine guarantees, since they often, as in the case of rutile, modify their process flow sheets to accommodate each and every type of rutile they agree to process.
This brings us to Orbite. ORT is in a class of its own, with multiple commodities, which has the benefit of very little dependence on the price of any single commodity. With worldwide patents to protect its technology and a wide variety of markets to satisfy, most of the risk is removed. An added benefit is also the ability of Orbite to satisfy individual customer requirements for its HPA, in terms of mesh, pore structure, particle size, etc.