Fodere Titanium Limited Announces Construction of Pilot Plant and Formation of North American Joint Venture, Fodere America
Additional Strategic Development includes Equity Investment by Titanium Industry Veteran
LONDON–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Fodere Titanium Limited (“Fodere”) the owner of a proprietary zero waste technology capable of extracting value from a wide variety of mineral and industrial waste feedstocks, today announced that it has commenced construction of a seven ton per day pilot plant near Kitwe, Zambia. The pilot plant is a crucial step towards demonstrating the advantages of Fodere’s technology and enabling its widespread commercialization. The pilot plant will facilitate refinement of the production process and allow the technology to be demonstrated with various feedstocks. The company expects the pilot plant to become operational in the first quarter of 2023.
The Company also announced the formation of Fodere America LLC (“Fodere America’), a joint venture to commercialize its technology in North America. The new venture was formed in conjunction with Titanium North America Holdings LLC (“Titanium North America”), an entity formed by Jeffry N. Quinn, and other investors. Mr. Quinn brings over thirty years of experience in the mining and chemical industries to the new venture, including formerly serving as chairman and chief executive officer of Solutia, Inc., and Tronox Holdings plc. He will serve as the chairman & chief executive officer of Fodere America.
Finally, Fodere also announced that in addition to the formation of the joint venture, Titanium North America has made an equity investment in Fodere and Mr. Quinn will join the board of directors of the company.
Nick Von Schirnding, chairman of Fodere, stated, “We are extremely pleased to announce the formation of the joint venture to commercialize our technology in North America. Jeffry Quinn brings deep experience in the titanium industry to the venture and will also add significant value as a member of the board of directors of Fodere.”
Jeffry Quinn, founder and managing member of Titanium North America, added, “We are pleased to partner with Fodere to commercialize its game-changing zero-waste technology. This technology will produce high grade titanium feedstock and other valuable products at very competitive prices, while embracing the importance of environmental stewardship and sustainability in today’s world.”
About Fodere and Its Technology
Fodere is a United Kingdom registered minerals technology company which has developed a new and innovative commercial process for the titanium, vanadium, iron and steel industries. This disruptive and game changing technology can extract value from a wide variety of feedstocks including tailings, derived from the iron, steel and vanadium industries.
Fodere has developed applications in extractive metallurgy designed to extract titanium dioxide, vanadium pentoxide and other valuable products from low-grade ores and waste stockpiles. Titanium dioxide has numerous uses, the main one being as a feedstock for producing pigments. Other applications include conversion to titanium metal. Vanadium pentoxide is an intermediate product which is generally converted to ferrovanadium. A new and growing use is to convert the intermediate product from the pentoxide form to vanadium compounds used in redox-flow batteries, a new kind of highly efficient heavy-storage battery.
Existing processes essentially use reduction in a high-temperature kiln followed by acid leaching. Fodere’s process does the same but does the reduction at much lower temperature and achieves target recoveries at a much coarser grind size providing significant cost advantages. Existing processes also require additional complex and expensive steps to recover other metals, whereas Fodere’s process does so by sequential precipitation from the leaching. As a result, Fodere’s process, will deliver significantly lower costs than existing methods, allowing the treatment of ores and stockpiles hitherto uneconomic to treat.
About Titanium North America
Titanium North America is a Delaware limited liability company. It was formed by Jeffry N. Quinn and other investors. Mr. Quinn is its chairman and managing member.
Cautionary Statement about Forward-Looking Statements
Statements in this release that are not historical are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements, which are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and assumptions about us, may include projections of our future financial performance including successful commercialization of our technology. These statements are only predictions based on our current expectations and projections about future events. There are important factors that could cause our actual results, level of activity, to differ materially from the results, level of activity, performance, anticipated synergies or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Significant risks and uncertainties may relate to, but are not limited to, business and market disruptions related to the COVID-19 pandemic, including supply chain disruptions, market conditions and price volatility for titanium dioxide, vanadium oxide and the availability of feedstock materials, global and regional economic downturns, including as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, that adversely affect the demand for our end-use products; disruptions in production at our mining and manufacturing facilities; and other financial, economic, competitive, environmental, political, legal and regulatory factors.
Moreover, the company will operate in a very competitive and rapidly changing environment. New risks and uncertainties emerge from time to time, and it is not possible for our management to predict all risks and uncertainties, nor can management assess the impact of all factors on our business or the extent to which any factor, or combination of factors, may cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statements. Although we believe the expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements are reasonable, we cannot guarantee future results, level of activity, performance, or achievements. Neither we nor any other person assumes responsibility for the accuracy or completeness of any of these forward-looking statements. You should not rely upon forward-looking statements as predictions of future events. Unless otherwise required by applicable laws, we undertake no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether because of new information or future developments.
Contacts
Fodere Titanium Limited:
Nicholas Cella
+44 (0) 7834 538646
Titanium North America Holdings:
Jeffry Quinn
Chairman and Managing Member
+1-314-825-4842
