Refractory magnesia supply trends & developments Magnesia (magnesium oxide, MgO) is one of the great workhorse refractory raw materials vital to manufacturing a wide range of refractory products, in particular the ubiquitous magnesia-carbon brick, essential to steelmaking worldwide. Magnesia is sourced mainly from the natural mineral magnesite, and increasingly rarely from synthetic sources such as [...]
IMFORMED’s 2025 conference programme got off to a fine start earlier this month with Mineral Recycling Forum 2025, at Mandelieu-La Napoule, near Cannes, 9-11 April. Bringing together leading players in recycling industrialminerals to network & listen to speakers on recycling calcium carbonate, andalusite, graphite, alumina, critical minerals, salt, fluorspar, refractories, glass, and ceramics. Special thanks [...]
Which mineral imports & markets are in line of US tariff fire? The industrial minerals trading community will be steeling itself over the latest round of US trade tariffs brought to bear on Tuesday 4 March on Canada (25%), China (doubled to 20%) and Mexico (25%). Going on the early form of this new US [...]
Seen & Heard at the MINEXCHANGE 2025 SME Annual Conference & Expo IMFORMED was delighted to attend and speak at last week's MINEXCHANGE 2025 SME Annual Conference & Expo in Denver. Mike O'Driscoll has been attending the annual SME event since 1988, which regularly brings together the global mining and minerals community (this year 7,000 [...]
PLUS: Tom Newman up for A. Frank Alsobrook Distinguished Service Award Looking forward to catching up next week with the global industrial minerals and mining community at the MINEXCHANGE 2025 SME Annual Conference & Expo, 24-26 February. Very interested to see how the new US Administration’s plans on commodity import tariff enforcement are being received [...]
Seen & Heard in Halkidiki: MagForum 2024 Reviewed Supply | Decarbonisation | Refractories | Chemicals | Nickel-Cobalt Processing | Wastewater | Agriculture For IMFORMED’s 8th annual MagForum conference, the premier meeting for global supply and markets for magnesia minerals, we went back to the birthplace of “magnesia”, Greece (see inset), and specifically to Halkidiki, [...]
The final quarter of the year has been an exceedingly busy period for IMFORMED. In mid-October we ran our successful Fluorine Forum 2024 and China Refractory Minerals Forum 2024 in Ulaanbaatar and Dalian, respectively (full reports coming soon), and also attended three important refractory market events: Refra Asia Symposium, Dalian, IREFCON 2024, Goa, and ALAFAR [...]
Ismene Clarke 1963-2024 A tribute by Mike O’Driscoll at the Funeral Celebration 31 October 2024 Good afternoon. You will hear from Ismene’s real husband a bit later…I’m the other one, the “work husband”. Ismene and I worked closely together for 35 years, mostly and beginning at Industrial Minerals magazine, where I was hired by a [...]
Industrial minerals | Refractories | Alumina | Ceramics | Lime | Sorting Mineral Recycling Forum 2024 Review | Latest insights on evolving sector Industrial minerals recycling from a wide range of waste streams is now a significantly evolving market sector in its own right. Whether from mine waste, refractories, construction, ceramics or batteries, a new [...]
In an interview to mark the 10th Anniversary of Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, and to coincide with the company’s 2024 AGM, Simon Moores, CEO, Benchmark, put some questions to Mike O’Driscoll, Director, IMFORMED, about the evolution of the industrial minerals business in his career. Title Image Rock Steady: Mike with some of his favourite rock samples [...]
