Orleans ships first wollastonite

Montreal-based Orleans Resources (OLS-T) has made its first commercial shipment of wollastonite concentrate from its new processing plant in Quebec’s St. Onge Twp., near Lac St.-Jean.

The Montreal-based company has also announced that its

50,000-tonne-per-year processing plant — the first and only one of its kind in Canada — is now operating around-the-clock, seven days a week.

Wollastonite, a calcium silicate mineral formed through contact metamorphism of crystalline limestone containing silica impurities, has several industrial uses: as a reinforcing agent in ceramics and plastics; as a flux in metallurgical applications; as a substitute for asbestos in building and friction materials; and as a filler in paints. The mineral sells for between US$140 and US$602 per tonne, depending on the quality.

Since last year, Orleans has been open-pit mining a wollastonite-rich skarn deposit, not far from its plant, estimated to hold 25 million tonnes grading 37% wollastonite and 37% diopside (a calcium-magnesium silicate), plus smaller amounts of quartz, microcline, oligoclase and calcite.

Construction of the $30-million mine and processing plant began in the summer of 1996. The project was backed by Cambior (CBJ-t), which managed the plant construction, and the Met/Chem Pellemon consortium, which was responsible for detailed engineering. Orleans was also assisted by the Centre for Research on Minerals in Ste. Foy, Que., which helped develop an exclusive wollastonite processing method.

Orleans raised a total of $31.7 million in August 1996 from several sources, including $10.65 million in convertible debentures.

Orleans arranged a $2-million line of credit with the National Bank of Canada and the province’s Ministry of Natural Resources contributed $1.2 million as credit on some mining duties and provided a 10-year, interest-free loan of $2.8 million. Human Resources Development Canada contributed $694,000 and in October 1997, Orleans increased its working capital by another $2.3 million by privately placing 400,000 shares at $2.50 each and by having 900,000 of 1.6 million warrants exercised by two Quebec-based pension funds at $1.47 per warrant.

Orleans has generated full-time employment for about 70 people and has assembled a sales team in Canada and the United States.