The sharp drop in oil price has clearly impacted the ceramic proppants market with major producers halting expansion plans and in more severe cases closing plants. How long can we expect these doldrums to last? The first casualty, reported earlier by Newsfile, was the closure of Oxane Materials Inc.’s Van Buren plant in Arkansas on [...]
Prof. Haydn H. Murray, world renowned industrial minerals geologist and long time professor of geology at Indiana University passed away peacefully on 4 February 2015 in Bloomington, Indiana. Haydn Murray was a great worker and friend to the industrial minerals community. He was a major fixture at the meetings of the Society of Mining, Metallurgy, [...]
Logistics is one of the most important components of any industrial mineral operation or project development. And yet it is the one aspect in industrial mineral project due diligence that is most often overlooked. It can make or break a project’s route to successful fruition. Why is logistics so important to industrial minerals? IMFORMED is [...]
IMFORMED launches new platform for industrial minerals networking and research, announcing high profile Forums on mineral logistics, oilfield, and foundry markets. A new source of information and networking events dedicated to the global industrial minerals business was launched in January 2015. Topically focused forums for the mineral logistics, oilfield, and foundry markets have been announced [...]
Hectatone’s first shipment of organoclay for oilfield drilling Hectatone Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Western Lithium USA Corp., has produced an organoclay, branded Hectatone™, from its processing plant near Fernley, Nevada, using lithium-rich hectorite from the Kings Valley deposit. The world’s second source of the special clay mineral hectorite came on-stream at the end of [...]
Rio Tinto Minerals (RTM), which claims to supply almost 50% of the world’s refined borates, has reported that its 2014 borates production was up 3% over 2013 to 508,000 tonnes B2O3 content. RTM’s Boron huge open pit mine yields more than 80 different minerals including tincal, kernite, ulexite and colemanite. [...]
Oil price crisis, what crisis? Despite apparent gloom for the outlook of drilling activity and its impact on oilfield mineral demand, M-I SWACO appears to be pressing ahead with plans to open a new barytes mine in the UK. The proposed Duntanlich mine site, near Aberfeldy, located below the Farragon Ridge. The new 120,000 [...]
Constructing the new barytes grinding plant, designed by The Mouat Co. Inc., at Halliburton’s Dunphy, Nevada facility, in 2014. The completed processing plant is the largest barytes plant in the world, and which now complements the barytes facilities of Baker Hughes as the two companies plan to merge later this year. Courtesy The Mouat [...]
Ecopropp’s sintering kiln undergoing inspection in December 2014. A ceramic proppant pilot plant, using fly ash as feedstock raw material, is planned to be commissioned in early 2015. Courtesy Ecopropp Pty Ltd. A pilot plant to be operated by Ecopropp Pty Ltd in Australia for producing ceramic proppants manufactured from fly ash is [...]
Ceramic proppant producer Oxane Materials Inc. is to close its Van Buren, Arkansas plant on 23 January 2015. News of the closure was delivered on 24 November in a letter to Van Buren Mayor Bob Freeman from Chris Coker, president of Oxane Materials; a shocked Freeman was reported as saying “The news was completely unexpected”. [...]
