ABOUT IRONVELD28 Feb 2014 07:42
Name
IRONVELD PLC ORD 1P
Epic
IRON
Sector
Support Services
ISIN
GB0030426455
Activites
Ironveld plc (formerly Mercury Recycling Group plc) is a new Pig Iron Project located on the Northern Limb of the Bushveld Complex in Limpopo Province South Africa. Ironveld expects to mine its own magnetite resource at approximately 2.4 million tons magnetite per annum as feedstock for its Pig Iron Plant to produce 1,000,000 tons of Pig Iron per annum. Potential for vanadium and titanium by-products. Pig iron is manufactured by smelting iron ore. There are two main types of iron ore: heamatite (Fe2O3) and magnetite (Fe3O4). The Ironveld Group has a Ti-magnetite iron ore resource, which it intends to mine as a feedstock for a pig iron plant. Pig iron is an intermediate product in the steelmaking process. Demand for pig iron comes from steel mills employing electric arc furnaces ('EAFs'), which process steel scrap metal rather than virgin iron units. EAFs already account for over 30% of steel production, and this figure is expected to continue to rise. For EAF steelmakers, pig iron is a scrap supplement that can add significant value beyond the contained iron units. Aside from diluting impurities in scrap, its use can result in improved operational consistency and productivity. In this respect, pig iron is superior to other alternative iron materials. Pig iron consumption is currently growing due to tightness in scrap availability (due to the rapid development of emerging market countries), a situation that is expected to last for the next five to ten years. Vanadium is a hard, ductile, silver-grey metal. The main use of vanadium is in alloys, especially with steel. 85% of all the vanadium produced goes into steel, 10% goes into alloys of titanium and 5% into all other uses. A small amount of vanadium adds strength, toughness, and heat resistance. It is usually added in the form of ferrovanadium, a vanadium-iron alloy. Vanadium steel alloys are used in gears, axles and crankshafts.