No news to me, but maybe to others.
Iluka Sees 3-D Printed Car Parts Lifting Titanium Dioxide Demand
By David Stringer February 21, 2014
Iluka Resources (ILU) Ltd., which supplies about 10 percent of global titanium dioxide, is betting a projected boom in 3-D printers to create car parts will boost demand for the commodity.
“The reality is that this could be game-changing,” Chief Executive Officer David Robb said today in a phone interview from Perth. “The big applications will be alloys, automotive, sheet metal and things that can now be printed in 3-D. We’ll provide the powder that goes to those 3-D printers.”
3-D printers create metal objects by adding layer upon layer of metallic powders together and using a laser to fuse the material to create a finished product. General Electric Co. plans to use the technique to print at least 85,000 fuel nozzles for its newest jet engine, it said in November.
The 3-D printing industry may have a market size of as much as $550 billion a year by 2025, McKinsey Global Institute said in May. Iluka said today it had agreed to pay 12 million pounds ($20 million) for an 18.3 percent stake in U.K.-based Metalysis Ltd., which has produced titanium powder from the Australian producer’s rutile stocks and last year created the first 3-D printed titanium car parts.
About 2.5 tons of rutile is required by Metalysis to produce 1 ton of titanium powder, Perth-based Iluka said today. “There is a limited amount of rutile available in the world that’s not in our hands,” Robb said.
Iluka rose 1.6 percent to close at A$9.37 in Sydney.
Metalysis will use TiO2 and convert it to Ti powder to be used in 3D printers. This will make the titanium metal way cheaper than it is today and demand will shoot through the roof with such a low cost. Argex + Metalysis = both lowest cost producers should make a great pair.