«Ilmenit» is looking for partners in the cluster «Non-ferrous and rare earth metals»

The Tomsk region invited investors to invest in the enterprises of the regional industrial cluster "Non-ferrous and rare earth metals".

— This is an interesting investment proposal in which we believe. The cluster has an anchor enterprise - the Ilmenit mining and processing plant, on its basis it is possible to create a serious number of new enterprises, - said Vasily Potemkin, Deputy Governor of the Tomsk Region for Investment Policy and Property Relations, speaking at the Krasnoyarsk Economic Forum 2023.

Evgeniy Golubchikov, Deputy Director General of CJSC Tugan Mining and Processing Plant Ilmenit, explained that during the production process, the enterprise releases a significant amount of fractionated sands, which may be of interest to investors, and the plant is ready to work with them on opening new enterprises.

— Our company put the plant into operation in the first quarter of 2022. Now, as part of the strategic task of ensuring Russia's sovereignty in titanium and zircon, a decision is being made to scale up the plant. Within 3-4 years, a serious cluster with associated satellite enterprises will be created on the basis of the Tugansk plant, he specified. — GOK Ilmenit has developed investment proposals for the creation of production facilities based on the extracted raw materials. Their localization in close proximity to the plant will minimize the partners' logistics costs.

According to Golubchikov, the mining and processing complex has learned to separate different grain diameters of fractionated sands according to their granular composition. These sands can be used in the production of dry building mixes, refractory and acid-resistant concrete, paving slabs, self-leveling floors, the glass industry, 3D printing, etc.

“In addition, it is possible to use our fractionated sands in order to get away from proppants for cheaper material, which is very important for the oil industry today,” comments a representative of Ilmenit.

As part of the first phase of the project, the plant is ready to supply 60 thousand tons of raw materials per year, in the second - 237 thousand tons.

Another redistribution of Ilmenite, which has prospects on the market as an independent product, is the production of quartz flour. In the first stage of the project, its volume may be about 240 thousand tons per year, in the second - 1260 thousand tons.

- In the near future we will undergo technical re-equipment and will produce a significant amount of quartz flour for potential consumers. Plants for the production of dry building mixtures and self-leveling floors can be built next to us. Flour can be used as part of furniture varnishes, sealants, road paints, liquid glass, fiberglass, - Evgeny Golubchikov lists.

Separately, he singled out projects related to the production of glass. Today, Iltmenit cooperates with companies such as Siberian Glass LLC, Interglass LLC, which pour glass containers.

— In our opinion, the production of sheet and automotive glass has significant potential. We were preparing an investment project on this topic with a resident of one of the unfriendly countries. It was not implemented, but all the research on the production of sheet glass has already been done, - said the deputy general director of the Tugan mining and processing plant at KEF-2023.

The third block is the production of silicon dioxide. The demand of the Russian market for this product by 2025 will be 97.8 thousand tons per year. Its market value varies from 160 to 800 rubles per kg, depending on the purity of the material. In the second phase, Ilmenit plans to produce 30 thousand tons of this raw material per year.

- An interesting collaboration can be formed with an investor who agrees to go into the logic of the redistribution of our quartz. The capacity of this market in Russia is colossal. Relatively small investments will allow investors to enter colossal, from our point of view, markets. All research has already been done. With investors, you can immediately sit down for the "road map," he said.

Silicon dioxide, according to him, will be of interest to enterprises producing tires, rubber products, ceramics, glass, sealants, as well as microelectronics, medicines, household chemicals, cosmetics and the food industry.

JSC "Tugansky Mining and Processing Plant" Ilmenit "is a mining enterprise established in September 2002 with the aim of industrial development of the Tugansky deposit of ilmenite-zircon sands. In 2021, the state corporation Rosatom represented by JSC Atomredmetzoloto became part of the company. In February 2022, ARMZ invested RUB 0.59 billion in TGOK Ilmenit.

Currently, a large-scale development project is being implemented by involving the resources of the Kuskovsko-Shiryaevsky license area in the extraction and increasing production capacity to 6.9 million tons of ore sands per year, according to the company's website. The project provides for the design and construction of a mining and processing complex for the production of zircon, ilmenite, rutile-leucoxene and quartz sand for the glass industry with a capacity of 6.9 million tons of raw materials. The launch of the mining and processing plant will be carried out in three stages: the first stage - 2.3 million tons per year, the second - 2.3 million tons per year, the third - 2.3 million tons per year.

Upon reaching the design capacity, Tugansky GOK will produce products in the following volumes: ilmenite concentrate (> 54% TiO2) - 83 thousand tons per year, leucoxene concentrate (> 85% TiO2) - 6 thousand tons per year, zircon concentrate (66% ZrO2 ) - 42 thousand tons per year, quartz sand for the glass industry (GOST 22551-77), fractionated quartz sand, quartz molding sand - 1 million tons per year.

Source: infopro54.ru

TGOK Ilmenit JSC is a Member of the Association "StekloSouz" of Russia.