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Hi Earnie,

In the interests of informed debate here is my limited knowledge of the NZ steel story as I know it.

The NZ ironsands from which steel is made are unique in the world.

There was a 15 year government subsidized campaign to unlock their previously impossible to use iron sands .It was felt that NZ strategically needed self sufficiency in steel manufacture.
Whether it is economic on a best practice case I don't know

Eventually research on new technology won the day.
They now produce their own steel.
NZ has 2 ironsands mines.
One is solely used for the steelworks.
The other solely exports to China.

The material that goes to China contains Ilmenite.
Apparently the ilmenite from an export point of view is seen as a contaminant.
It was felt that if the Ilmenite could be pulled out the resultant ironsands would have more export market appeal.

Only China accepts the ilmenite loaded ironsands because in very old furnaces it is actually beneficial.

APG successfully treated the ironsands and removed the ilmenite.
The APG laboratory testing successfully removed the ilmenite.
HOWEVER when the 100 ? tonne bulk sample was run through the APG plant constructed in NZ it successfully removed the Ilmenite ...but that ilmenite was found to contain silicone ie the sticky element.
The silicone made the ilmenite unsaleable.
The export concept was not economic.

Any further development lapsed.
China still takes the ironsands.

I suspect J Winter is the only one who knows the full story and he hasn't written a paper on it that is in the public domain.

Neverthless what it does show is the necessity to do a full scale test on the bulk sample.

This is what APG is doing at Newcastle.