An article that I came across on the Oregon Resources Website....

An article that I came across on the Oregon Resources Website. There is some other stuff on there worth reading.

Heading into a Sales Spin

Oregon chromite has unique properties not found elsewhere in the world which allow it to be used as a zircon replacement. HA-International, ORC’s domestic distributor, has worked with foundries to test SpheriChrome as a replacement for their zircon. SpheriChrome is 1/3 or less of the price of Zircon to the end user. A foundry that uses only 400 short tons of SpheriChrome sent an analysis showing that they could cut their raw minerals cost by around $600,000 per year by switching from zircon to SpheriChrome.

ORC has sent SpheriChrome out for testing in Thailand, Australia, China, Japan, Taiwan, Korea and several countries in Europe including Russia. Feedback from SpheriChrome testing is positive. This testing is for various applications including the steel market where prices and demand will remain robust due to health and infrastructure.

The first chromite bulk shipment is expected to occur in the next few months with the inventory starting to be set up at Roseburg Forest Products. This product is directed towards Europe for Possehl Erzkontor, ORC’s exclusive distributor in that region.

In the last two months the zircon concentrate was brought online. ORC zircon is called a concentrate in the market because the percent of the element ZrO2 is about 10% lower than typical (65% ZrO2). This new product is currently sold out to capacity with all of production going immediately to orders. The current market value of this zircon concentrate is around 2.5x that of an equal bag of chromite. ORC’s zircon sales in November (over 1,000 metric tons) will bring in more than 1 million dollars in revenue.

High iron ilmenite continues to be used in a Vein Seal application by IGC Technologies, now a part of Prince Minerals. The testing feedback is positive for this foundry application and IGC expects the demand to increase in the first quarter of 2012.

Marketing continues to review testing information at end user foundries and support distributors with transferring this information to sales. With the encouraging testing responses and forecasts, we expect strong demand for our mineral products in 2012.


http://oregon-resources.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/ORC-Newsletter-11-15.pdf