NEW YORK -- Antimony trioxide producer Amspec Chemical Corp., Gloucester, N.J., intends to restart operations at its antimony mine in Lake George, New Brunswick, in about six months following an assessment of available Chinese material.
The company, said to be the largest domestic consumer of antimony metal, closed the Canadian mine 10 years ago due to a deluge of Chinese material entering the market, Jia-Shyong Lin, Amspec's purchasing and sales manager, said this week.
Sulfide ore from the Lake George Mine contains antimony which can be made into a Chinese grade 2 antimony metal, Lin said. Grade 2 metal is minimum 99.65 percent antimony. Lin said that some of the ore could be refined to an even higher Chinese grade 1 metal, which is 99.86 percent antimony.
Mine output will be very limited when the Lake George operation starts, with full production capacity of 200 metric tons of contained antimony per month not scheduled to be achieved until late 1995, Lin said. Amspec does not have a smelter in Canada to treat the mined material, he added, and will send the concentrates to a smelter in Bolivia, Mexico or China, although no contracts have been negotiated.
Amspec intends to consume all of the material produced from the mine, which it will reopen to reassure its customers that it has adequate material.
China, which typically produces about 80 percent of the world's antimony, during the past year has been conspicuous for its absence in the antimony market.
Western World antimony oxide and metal prices have tripled from their year-ago levels due to diminished Chinese supplies.
"It's not the price which has caused us to want to reopen the mine. We saw the quantity of material from China has fallen, and if the Chinese continue to produce less material we'll be in a pinch," Lin said.
Lin said that the Chinese antimony producers, whom he spoke with last month at the Canton Fair in China, had very little material on hand.
Even with the restarting of the mine, Amspec ill remain a player in the Defense Logistics Agency's monthly antimony auction. "(The DLA material) is convenient for us to take, the quality is proven (at about Chinese grade 2) and we get the assurance of delivery we have not gotten from the Chinese merchants this year."
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