A study on titanium by AME Mineral Economics of Australia indicates that chlorinatable slag will be the glamor TiO2 feedstock for the remainder of the decade.
Projected balances show that the existing chlorinatable slag capacity will become deficient after 1996.
Forecast rates for the production of ilmenite (which consists of titanium, iron and oxygen) confirm industry concerns about the future availability of that mineral. These concerns have, in turn, prompted the development of new mines in southern Africa, India and Vietnam.
The pricesetter, at least in chlorinatable feed stock markets, is now chlorinated slag which, like pigment production, is essentially an industrial process.
Mined feedstocks and synthetic rutile will consequently track slag prices more closely in future, and the passing of feedstock price leadership away from the miners to the slag producers means that feedstocks will eventually be priced against TiO2 pigment prices.
AME says the obvious model for the future behavior of TiO2 minerals prices is the aluminum industry, where alumina feedstock is manufactured from mined bauxite. Both alumina and bauxite are priced as a proportion of aluminum prices, and AME says the study identifies the conditions required for the TiO2 market to go the same way.
The 300-page Titanium Minerals 1994 study focuses on the economics of titania pigment production and its impact
on the production and consumption of ilmenite, rutile and upgraded ilmenite materials to 2005.
For more information, contact AME Mineral Economics, GPO Box 3602, Sydney 2001, Australia.
Be the first to comment on "Titanium market studied"