Fluorspar: The Sweet Spot for Quebec‘s Steel and Aluminium Industries
Today, Saville Resources Inc. (TSX.V: SRE) highlighted the fluorspar potential of its niobium project, optioned from its neighbor Commerce Resources Corp. (TSX.V: CCE), which is busy developing its Ashram REE (Rare Earth Element) Project in Québec, Canada, following the recent closing of a +$2.5 million CAD financing.
Ashram is not only one of the world‘s largest REE deposits but is also one of the largest fluorspar (CaF2) deposits globally with defined mineral resources. Therefore, the Ashram Deposit is not only an advanced-stage REE deposit, which remains the primary commodity of interest, it is also an advanced-stage fluorspar deposit.
Historical drilling on Saville‘s adjacent property has intersected long intervals of high-grade fluorite.
Fluorite is the industrial mineral known as fluorspar, from which the two primary commercial grades are produced and traded globally: Metallurgical grade fluorspar (“met-spar“; 60-97% CaF2) and acid-grade (“acid-spar“; +97% CaF2), which normally sells at a premium. While met-spar is primarily used in steel production, acid-spar is used in aluminium production, amongst many other industries.
Québec is the world‘s second largest aluminium exporter (+80% goes to the US), and also a major steel producer with large iron ore mines located near-by at the Labrador Trough. With Commerce‘s and Saville‘s properties also located in Québec‘s Labrador Trough, a reliable long-term fluorspar source would be all the more welcome to the province‘s aluminium and steel industries. The world‘s biggest fluorspar producer, China, has recently become a net importer, causing significant price increases and end-users looking for new sources.
Commerce Resources is engaged in the business of acquiring, exploring, developing and evaluating mineral resource properties, and either joint venturing or developing these properties further or disposing of them when the evaluation is completed. Co. is in the exploration stage and has interests in properties located in British Columbia and Quebec, Canada. The recoverability of amounts shown for resource properties is dependent upon the discovery of economically recoverable reserves, continuation of Co.'s interest in the underlying mineral claims, the ability of Co. to obtain financing to complete their development, and future profitable production or disposition thereof.
Rockstone is a research house specialized in the analysis and valuation of capital markets and publicly listed companies. The focus is set on exploration, development and production of resource deposits as well as marcoeconomic analysis of commodity and currency markets. Our international team of five analysts bring our German and English speaking readership a wealth of experience from the commodity markets: Stephan Bogner (mining analyst), John P. Barry (professional geologist), Chris Berry (macroeconomist), Prof. Dr. Hans Bocker (award-winning book author), and Boris Gerjovic (fundamental analyst).
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