Member Info for RogB

I don't know if this is a reputable website but SML gets a mention: https://www.share-talk.com/rns-hotlist-with-zak-mir-glen-rio-hui-sbry-plsr-sml-eden-bmv/

"Strategic Minerals plc (SML), an international mineral exploration and production company, provided the following update on Q4 and 2025 performance and activities. SML said “Strong Cobre performance provides sustainable revenue and operational stability to enable continued advancement of the Redmoor Tungsten-Tin-Copper Project.”

Comment: Shares of SML have held up well after their big October transformation, something which is not surprising given the way that Redmoor is right on the money in terms of the market’s current lust for critical metals. The current share price consolidation should give way to a retest of the 1.8p 2025 peak within a matter of weeks."

TitaniumX has an entry on companies house. Seems to be a one man band, less than 1 yr old, private company. Richard Tedder , an American, listed as owner, secretary and director.

Thanks for keeping a sharp eye on the detail and following this up with Rupert, ShipwreckSheep. Even stronger thanks for passing the info on to us. Sounds very promising, effectively extending all of the tested area, albeit I don't know much about geology!

Sadly no, it appears as a global limit on every account.

I would like some more but Trading212 limits SML to 166,667 in both S&S ISA and general investing accounts! I have my limit in general investing but no cash in my ISA to buy more...

A bit frustrating but it they are free accounts - maybee I should ask if they can change the limits though

Thanks for the referral back to Ageos's 14th September post and the heads up on the FFC Cambridge Ezerscrooge and Kongolasse. I have had a quick look at the FFC Cambridge research and it certainly looks interesting - the technology is being commercialised on what appears to be a small scale for various metals by Metalysis https://metalysis.com/our-products/?tab=titanium primarily for additive manufacturing powders and alloys. They dont appear to have a commercial Ti product yet.

Ageos' post mentioned a continuous fluidised bed Ti production process, TiRO, which I think is much more interesting. As a continuos process it has potential for scale up, it was developed by CSIRO and Coogee (who are a chemicals company based in Perth) and they have a joint venture company called CoogeeTitanium. Their website has a timeline with "2019: Establishment of 200tpa CP Titanium and Titanium-64 Powder Demonstration Plant. Located at Coogee HQ, Perth (Kwinana). The feed for this process is TiCl4 and Mg powder - in 2023 the timeline has "Magnesium powder production and sales commenced in Ottowa, Illinois USA. Coogee chemical manufacture chlorine and also has dedicated transport services if you look them up (may not all be in Perth but they supply Tronox's pigment plant in the area https://www.coogee.com.au/chlor-alkali/).

I am wondering if SB's references to pilot plants might not just relate to refining the ore but also to TiCl4 production and the CoogeeTitanium demonstrator plant for Ti production. In which case it makes a lot more sense as they have a home grown Aussie process for Ti in the local area......interesting eh!

I would be a bit more cautious about the Ti sponge - the Empire team have stated and aim to make TiCl4 which is the main precursor to sponge. Howver the process to turn TiCl4 into Ti is energy intensive and chemically not straightforward. The main process, called the Kroll process, runs as a closed cycle with TiO2 being reacted with Cl to make TiCl4, this is input and reacted with Mg to make Ti metal and MgCl2. The MgCl2 is recycled back to liberate Cl2 for and Mg the first step - theres a good description here https://www.toho-titanium.co.jp/en/about/. Therefore you would want to co-locate the TiCl4 production and Ti plant so you aren't shipping Cl2 gas, TiCl4 liquid (both of which are hazardous) and Mg and MgCl. The transport costs and environmental concerns would be a problem. Toho built their plant in Saudi because of energy costs in Japan rising after the earthquke shut off cheap nuclear power. Hopefully cheap green energy in Australia and 100+ yr mine life might also encourage as similar joint venture. No sign of this yet and I think we will be producing TiO2 powders for some time even if it does come to pass. Would probably be a government level decision. So the answer to do we make sponge is likely to be no for some time, yes to being able to make TiCl4 in future but is it a viable commodity without a nearby plant? The Empire Ti itself sounds very pure and that would be attractive as TiCl4 has to be cleaned up typically as well.

S&S Isa allowance was full so had to start a general investing account to park some cash in from an inheritance - hopefully will be lucky with timing a bed and ISA shift of funds in the spring.

I'm trying to buy a few more but trades never go through on T212 - they just sit there for hours while other buys below my limit get filled...its not even a lot of shares i'm after.

ShipwreckSheep - I think the point that is bugging me is the 20th October RNS using oxidants to liberate acid and cut down on the amount of acid needed to leach mentions an additional bonus of suppressing Ce (Ruperts video is pretty clear). Now if Ce has become a product that you want to precipitate in your flowsheet and not in the ground you can't use the oxidant approach to liberate acid from the iron pyrite so costs have gone up. Now I guess either the trials of different oxidants mentioned came up with one that changed the pH but didnt trap the Ce so a flowsheet needed to remove Ce or the balance of the economics looks like dump the oxidants (the peroxide is expensive as I mentioned before) use more acid and have added Ce removal stage in the flowsheet and make a Ce product to claw back some costs. This RNS didn't seem to fit the flow of the previous ones and seems to mark a change in direction. It would be nice if they linked to the previous RNS's a bit for context. I still reckon Cobra are a very good bet, and the chemsitry is obviously being thoroughly tested!

The previous RNS on metallurgy was a methodology to leave most of the Ce in the ground. Today's is about removing it in the flowsheet. Both describe a starting Ce fraction of about 30%. I guess doing both adds options or redundancy but I thought the previous RNS on this more significant. This one muddys the water a bit for me.

Here's the rest

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Dustyslay,

You posted this morning about Ademcg and pilot plant in commercial labs. I think the 28th August Rns covered this: "The next steps for the mineral separation flowsheet development will be further optimisation of the chemistry and conditions, larger scale batch testwork and then continuous piloting can be undertaken at a laboratory scale. Testwork to date has shown the Pitfield weathered ores amenability to conventional mineral separation, beneficiation and refining techniques, and this avoids the need to build a bespoke, demonstration plant. A simpler and lower cost continuous pilot plant operation can be established, utilising local, internationally accredited commercial metallurgical laboratories."

First up apologies Dusty, I never replied to your query about another companies processing using Hydrogen rather than Chlorine process for Ti metal. I did look but I am on holiday for the first time in years so in brief - looks good for recycling, but although they say it works with TiO2 feedstock I doubt that is very efficient. Looks good for making feed for their cast metal parts but seems to be a batch process good for low volume high added value manufacturing of Ti parts which is fine for some aerospace and medical.

I think Empires material stands out for purity of TiO2 that they can provide and sheer volume of material. It's easy to conflate Ti metal and TiO2 oxide products in discussions. A fraction of a percent metal impurity io TiO2 is deleterious as a pigment as transition metal ions make colour centres (even extra Ti in TiO2 to make TiO(2-x) (it's written as an oxygen deficiency but excess Ti dissolves in TiO2) turns rutile from white to blue, called substoichiometric). Getting rid of metal impurity is the hard part.

The volume doesn't lend itself to batch process as it's too slow to make Ti metal. Interesting that TiCl4 is again mentioned. It's not nice stuff to transport so I think, and the Cl is recycled in production of Ti metal so makes little sense to ship TiCl4 and import Cl2 big distances. Big news if they are hoping to (eventually) co locate a Ti plant although TiO2 will almost certainly be the initial product.

I did notice some news about TiO2 oversupply, due to a lower than expected "painting season" soaking up production. What I read did say that Chinese Ti sponge wasn't certified for aerospace so I don't think there's a seasonal dip for Ti in critical applications.

While I am waffling on on my phone I can see a load of new messages so apologies if this lands out of context or is of little interest!

So effectively there will be 2.5% share dilution, but the company has acquired £7M so it's value has gone up by more than the dilution? (by value i mean Mcap yesterday vs Mcap +£7M, is 2.7%).

Best of all has funds to drive further rapid progress.

Full paper is available as authors accepted copy here ( Durham uni repository if LSE strip the link out) https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1948452/metallogenic-setting-and-temporal-evolution-of-porphyry-cu-mo-mineralization-and-alteration-in-the-delamerian-orogen-south-australia-insights-from-zircon-u-pb-molybdenite-re-os-and-in-situ-white-mica-rb-sr-geochronology

No offence taken. I don't have mining expertise, but I am an expert on TiO2 surface chemistry and properties. I agree that Ti metal production is not on the immediate horizon, however, they are clearly planning some major infrastructure if they are still drilling to establish where to put plant. The RNS Number : 0239X 28th Aug states that they are looking at various products while working on the flowsheet, one of which they mention is TiCl4 the feedstock for Ti sponge. They will need to know what products to make at what grades before finalising a process to make them.

SB in this interview and in the recent conference presentation seemed to mention Ti metal far more than TiO2 pigment. Especially at the conference he emphasised the clean low cost energy that was available locally. Producing Ti metal is energy intensive, the Ti sponge plant in Saudi was there because at least in part" Toho Titanium established a joint venture in Saudi Arabia primarily to reduce production costs, as Saudi Arabia has some of the cheapest electricity costs in the world, which is a significant expense in titanium sponge production". Having a pure TiO2 feedstock must also reduce costs. Any thoughts on SB touting for a local Ti metal production facility? I would imagine a multi generational supply of feedstock would be a big draw.

A few days ago Manlord guesstimated some profitability from Tio2 production of 2.618mt per year and posts therefater (RE: Surprising16 Oct 2025 01:06 which was the calculation, and im not experienced enough to confirm or deny correct) and later extrapolated to values for Ti sponge (RE: Surprising16 Oct 2025 01:26). Aerospace approved Ti worldwide seems to be 90,000T production from Japan, Saudi and Kazakhstan- the key thing here is the massive Ti supplies from China aren't approved for aerospace as I understand things. Manlords calcs suggest that a Ti sponge plant could be fed with a fraction of the Pitfields output and supply the world with aerospace grade materials. Is the local Aussie energy cheap.....? I hope this sort of forward planning is on the radar.... or am I miles off?

The disadvantage of using the pyrite (FeS2) to generate sulphuric acid in-situ is that it will leave a lot of Fe ions in solution. How do you get rid of them? - if you precipitate out the high surface area of the precipitate could also remove a significant amount of the REE if thats still in solution. I guess you might get lucky and the Ce goes first. Theres a lot of chemistry going on in there, and I don't suppose the peroxide is cheap to buy. The chemical equations in the RNS dont balance either so I don't think they have pinned down the reaction yet.

Looks to me it should be more like:

FeS2 + 7 H2O2 -> Fe^2+ + 2(SO4)^2- + 6H2O + 2 H^+ which is effectively FeSO4 + H2SO4 + 6H2O. Thus one lot of sulfuric acid (H2SO4) for every 7 lots of peroxide (H2O2). The FeSO4 (IronII sulfate) is soluble in the water.

However, they are doing the work at a good pace and I think this is a promising avenue to follow.

Thanks GGP and RichyRich1. Seems how the the total shares came about is not totally clear but likely warrant related. Helpful to have things explained.