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 [...]
The recent rise in the “criticality” of fluorspar has appeared to bolster the prospects of several fluorspar projects around the world (see “Industrial Minerals – Have they finally gone critical?”). Ahead of the pack is the Lost Sheep Mine in Utah, USA. In Germany, steps are being taken to re-open the Käfersteige mine. In Australia, [...]
Seen & Heard at Fluorine Forum 2023 Market Review | Logistics | China | Mongolia | New Sources | Batteries | Welding | Fluoropolymers It was the Fluorine Forum that broke our attendance record: Fluorine Forum 2023, at Mandelieu-La-Napoule, 16-18 October 2023, was IMFORMED’s largest event to date for the global fluorspar market. Some 200 [...]
Introduction to Mining Engineering’s IM Annual Review July 2024 by Mike O'Driscoll* The importance of industrial minerals to the world economy and everyday lives always used to be a hard sell to the uninitiated. Just having to explain what they are and how they are characterised in the context of the world mining industry was [...]
Review of Salt Forum 2023 Supply & Demand Trends | New Source Projects | Southern Africa | Senegal | Europe | APAC | India | Australia | Processing | Logistics IMFORMED has organised its acclaimed industrial mineral Forums in many interesting locations, and one of the most remote, adventurous, and spectacular venues was for Salt [...]
Leading world magnesia and refractories producer RHI Magnesita (RHIM) plans to acquire US diverse refractory product and mineral producer Resco Group for US$430m. The move, announced by the Vienna-based group on 30 March 2024, marks a reinforcing of RHIM’s position in the USA following last year’s opening of its regional head office in Tampa, Florida, [...]
Review of the XII European Congress of Refractory Raw Materials, Machinery & Installation Graphite | Alumina | Andalusite | Silicon Carbide | Magnesia | Logistics | Decarbonisation | Recycling Kicking off this year’s European refractory events calendar, Seville in the springtime appeared the perfect place to gather for IMFORMED’s second refractories conference co-organised with ANFRE [...]
