International Minor Metals Conference 2022: Preview

In just a few days, the MMTA is delighted to be welcoming members and delegates in person to the historic UK city of Sheffield for the International Minor Metals Conference 2022, which will run from Sunday 10^th to Wednesday 13^th April, at the magnificent Cutlers’ Hall venue.

Kicking off several wonderful days of insights and networking opportunities is a four ball golf tournament at Lindrick Golf Course on Sunday 10^th April, which is kindly sponsored by ICD Alloys & Metals LLC and IDC Europe Ltd. Separate booking for this can be made with our conference organisers Metal Events Ltd (please contact jill@metalevents.com).

Moving into Monday 11^th April, the morning will see a field trip to AMRC’s Factory 2050, the UK’s first state of the art factory entirely dedicated to conducting collaborative research into reconfigurable digitally assisted assembly, component manufacturing and machining technologies. The factory is capable of rapidly switching production between different high-value components and one-off parts. Factory 2050 is the first building to be completed on the University of Sheffield’s new Advanced Manufacturing Campus. The 6,730m sq landmark circular glass building and rectangular extension is home to the AMRC’s Integrated Manufacturing Group (IMG). There are places for 30 people only on this trip. Separate booking for this can be made with our conference organisers Metal Events Ltd (please email rachel@metalevents.com).

On Monday afternoon, the MMTA will hold its AGM, for which all member companies are encouraged to attend. Following the AGM, we look forward to welcoming all delegates to the evening drinks reception at the Cutlers’ Hall, for what promises to be a most convivial evening in an exceptional venue.

The Company of Cutlers in Hallamshire was incorporated by an Act of Parliament in 1624, and in 1638 the Company bought a piece of land on Church Street and built their first hall. The present hall, the third, a Grade II* listed building, was built on the same piece of land in 1832. This is regarded as one of the finest livery halls in the north of England.

Tuesday – Aerospace, sustainability and pricing

The main conference presentation programme begins on Tuesday 12^th April and, thanks to a wonderful array of speakers, delegates have a stimulating and topical agenda. MMTA chair Donna Vareha-Walsh will begin the morning with welcome remarks, before opening the stage to Charles Turner DL, Deputy Lieutenant for South Yorkshire, Chairman of the Sheffield Assay Office, Member of the Company of Cutlers and Managing Director, Durham Duplex, Sheffield, UK, whose presentation “Made in Sheffield and the history of The Cutlers’ Hall”, promises to be timely and welcome introduction to Sheffield’s crucial role in UK manufacturing since its emergence during the Industrial Revolution.

Moving to the future importance of UK industry, Matt Hatfield, Critical Minerals Strategy Lead at UK Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, will present on, “Strategy and policy for critical minerals”.

As Matt Hatfield will outline, critical minerals are essential for the UK’s national security, economic prosperity and net zero transition, but their supply is at risk, due to their rarity, location, supply chain capacity, lack of substitutes, rapid demand growth and other factors. For example, the International Energy Agency (IEA) suggests that demand for EV battery minerals such as lithium, graphite, and cobalt could increase by up to 20-40 times by 2040 in a sustainable development scenario. Former National Security Advisor, Lord Sedwill, noted at the G7 that “critical minerals, semiconductors and data are the oil, steel and electricity of the 21st century”.

Boosting the UK’s domestic critical minerals supply chain is important, particularly in extraction of lithium, tin and tungsten, strategic mid-stream processing capabilities and in the circular economy.  If developed in a way that protects communities and the environment, this brings real opportunities for Levelling Up – but ultimately the UK is limited by its geology. Most of our critical minerals will continue to be imported, so the UK relies on the resilience of international supply chains. The UK is home to many of the world’s mining majors, as well as the London Metals Exchange, and is a leader in regulatory diplomacy, so has the opportunity to play a major role internationally.

The UK’s Net Zero Strategy committed to publishing a critical minerals strategy to mitigate risks to the UK’s long-term security of supply for critical minerals, create opportunities domestically and play a leading role internationally. The government also plans to launch the Critical Minerals Intelligence Centre this year, which will monitor critical mineral supply chains and project future supply and demand.

Matt Hatfield’s presentation will outline the government ongoing work on critical minerals and explore themes that are being considered.

After the keynote presentations the conference will look at the first themed session, “Aerospace in a post-Covid world”, with two distinguished speakers. Wavell Coulson, Strategic Buyer, Rolls-Royce, UK, will discuss, “Sustainability at Rolls-Royce – reduce, reuse and recycle”, outlining the group’s sustainability drive. Sustainability, from a Rolls-Royce perspective, not only involves the drive to create more fuel efficient and cleaner burning aeroengines but in those processes employed to manufacture those parts both at RR plants and in the supply chain. Such processes include reducing the volume of materials which are required to make aerospace parts/engines; reuse through closed loop revert programs where RR works with supply chain partners to collect, clean and certify turnings and solids from RR manufacturing plants and supply chain partners worldwide; and recycling whereby materials not suitable to close loop back to the melter are pointed towards RR supply chain partners who collect and process, for example, into rhenium metal suitable for RR melters.

As the world begins to open up again as Covid-19 restrictions are lifted, Rachel Humphries, Director of Communications, Cirium, will give a timely presentation on, “Cirium, The numbers: Impact of Covid-19 on aviation and the outlook”.

Following a networking coffee break kindly sponsored by Exotech, the second of the day’s themed sessions will begin on, “The future is green: the future is minor metals”, with four unique perspectives.

First to speak in the session is Mario Lama, market development executive manager, Molymet Group, on “Rhenium’s potential in the green hydrogen industry”. As the main supplier of rhenium worldwide, Molymet seeks to grow the use of rhenium in industrial applications beyond its use in nickel-based superalloys.

As Mario Lama will discuss, Molymet promotes rhenium in applications inside and outside the established markets through its “rhenium market development” program. The goal of the Program is to ensure that companies and individuals trying to develop and commercialise products that contain or may contain rhenium receive the appropriate support from Molymet. The support granted by the Program consists of technical resources, security of long-term supply, price stability, capital, and added value.

An example of this is Molymet’s initiative “rhenium in the green hydrogen”, boosted by an open Innovation Challenge called Re-Imagine Challenge. Hydrogen is a crucial chemical for ammonia-based fertilisers and could be used in iron ore reduction for the steel industry, biofuel, and synthetic hydrocarbons production. These are key industries for our present and future, and therefore it is essential to decarbonise them.

Hydrogen also can become an energy carrier to store and transport energy to places and industries that do not have easy access to the electricity grid. Current hydrogen production is mainly by Steam Methane Reforming (SMR), in which fossil fuels are broken apart to produce H2 and CO2. This process emits around 9t of carbon dioxide per each tonne of hydrogen.

As Mario Lama will outline, hydrogen can be produced through the electrolysis process (electrolyzers systems), which consists of separating water (H2O) into oxygen and hydrogen using electrical energy. When NCRE is used, the product obtained is called green hydrogen.

Electrolysis of water is a promising source of hydrogen. Still, several efforts are under development to address this challenge, aiming to reduce the devices’ cost, improve efficiency, and extend service life. In particular, the search for alternative cheaper and sustainable catalyst materials is a crucial line of research and development.

In this context, Mario Lama will explain, rhenium emerges as an excellent alternative to PGMs due to its remarkable electrochemical properties, reduced cost compared to PGMs, and stable and sustainable sourcing.

Ian Mellor, from the Technology & Materials Discovery Centre, Metalysis, UK, will then speak on, “A presentation about space age technology”. The Metalysis process is a disruptive technology, offering an innovate route to produce a range of metals, alloys, and intermetallic powders across the periodic table, from their respective oxides. As Ian Mellor will outline, in a recent development, the oxygen by-product, which from a terrestrial perspective is ordinarily discarded, is attracting significant interest from the space community. It can be used as a means to support life in a lunar environment, or refueling spacecraft bound for deep space.

Delegates will then hear about “Development of bioleaching processes for sustainable recovery of precious metals”, from Sebastien Farnaud, Professor in Bio-Innovation & Enterprise, Research Centre for Sport, Exercise & Life Sciences, Coventry University. As our demand in high technology increases, raw materials become rarer. Critical raw materials include a number of metals, so that it is now essential that we don’t rely essentially on natural sources, but that secondary sources be considered and exploited in sustainable ways. Electronic waste, with 50Mt generated globally each year, is a good example of such a demand but also of such a potential source of precious metals. With only 20% formally recycled, e-waste is routinely shipped overseas for disposal, where it is burned through inefficient extraction processes, exposing workers and ecosystems to toxic by-products. Worldwide, rare metals including gold, silver, copper and platinum worth an estimated €55bn are lost annually.

At Coventry University, the Bioleaching Research Group have developed an innovative, efficient and green solution, using bioleaching to recover precious metals from e-waste. This technology, which uses bacteria to recover metals from solid waste, has transformed the commercial capacities of some IT waste companies and is revolutionising the UK industry within the ‘circular economy’, whilst tackling environmental issues, and tightening security surrounding e-waste disposal. As Sebastien Farnaud will outline, the presentation of these results at COP26 has attracted strong interest from a number of stakeholders of the metal industry and also from the waste industry. This presentation describes bioleaching technology, and illustrate its potential through different processes developed for added value to waste, through the recovery of precious metals.

Leigh Cassidy, Lead Scientist, SEM World, Aberdeen, UK, will outline the work of SEM, in her paper “Brass from muck”. SEM has a strong environmental and social ethos and currently has a full stable of technologies which concentrate on resource recovery. SEM has a number of commercially operational technologies which not only recover elements and nutrients from industrial waste streams but also generate clean environmentally dischargeable water as a by-product. In the current climate it is vital in both financial and environmental terms to conserve and recycle resources. Leigh Cassidy will discuss the importance, value and benefits of resource recovery across a number of industries and the importance of intersectoral collaboration in order to achieve this.

Prices and markets evolve and change and in turn there are stages in market development. The verification and transparency of data is useful in this development in establishing better pricing and bringing order to markets.

After a break for lunch and networking, the afternoon session offers delegates an opportunity to hear from a range of price reporting agencies and their price discovery work in minor metals, in the panel discussion, “Pricing panel: process; formulation; oversight; scrutiny, and compliance”.

The conference is fortunate to have insights from Annalisa Jeffries, Methodology Manager, S&P Global Platts, UK; Peter Hannah, Senior Price Development Manager, Fastmarkets, UK; and Anuradha Ramanathan, Senior Reporter (rare earths, electronic metals), Argus Media, UK.

As Annalisa Jeffries of S&P Global Platts will explain, price reporting agencies in commodity markets have a huge responsibility with pricing often used as references and settlements in contracts, across many markets including oil, petrochemicals, metals, agriculture, gas and power as well as energy transition sectors. There is a need for accuracy and integrity and in turn compliance. Part of the compliance function is for well-researched methodology as well as the maintenance of standards and consistent application of Platts methodologies.

Platts standards are the same whether an assessment is a reference or settlement. The Platts price reporting system, centres around transparency and integrity. The importance of transparency is the basis of the verification data used in the assessment process. Data open to market view and testing, which in turn builds confidence in the process and is the foundation of quality data.

Prices and markets evolve and change and in turn there are stages in market development. The verification and transparency of data is useful in this development in establishing better pricing and bringing order to markets.

Also, in an environment of increased volatility in pricing, it is key to track these price changes as they happen, so industry participants can understand the relative value of commodities in order to take decisions.

Time stamped prices are crucial in any industry that involves multiple commodities as source and output, producers, processors and consumers need to know the price of a raw material with the same timestamp as a processed material.

After a varied and insightful day of presentations, delegates are then invited to a Real Ale Pub Afternoon at Cutlers’ Hall kindly sponsored by Advanced Alloy Services.

Wednesday – Covid’s impacts on supply chains, and new markets

The conference programme on Wednesday 13^th April promises to offer another stimulating day of insights and networking, commencing with the morning panel discussion on, “Supply chain issues and how minor metals are responding globally to Covid disruption”. The expert panel comprises Stephen Hall, Managing Director, Advanced Alloys Ltd, UK; James Peer, Director, Maritime House, UK; Joel Nields, Director Sales, Exotech, USA; and Simon Boon, VP, Sovereign International Metals & Alloys, UK.

 

 

 

 

After morning coffee kindly sponsored by Exotech, delegates have the opportunity to attend a visit to Sheffield Forgemasters’ forge and melt shop. (Please note that this trip is now fully booked, for details email rachel@metalevents.com). The origins of Sheffield Forgemasters date back to the 1750s as a small blacksmith forge. Edward Vickers, a traditional mill owner, set up the foundations for the business as a modern steel producer in 1805. Since then the company has been associated with many famous steel industry names such as English Steel, Firth Brown, British Steel and River Don Castings. Sheffield Forgemasters is now capable of producing the largest and most technically challenging cast and forged steel components in the world.

The final session of the conference, on “New markets and the supply chain” offers a detailed look at the latest developments in tantalum, indium and battery raw materials. First to speak will be William Millman, director of Mines, Minerals, Metals & Markets Ltd, with “An update on tantalum – supply chain developments”.

As Bill Millman will outline, it is important to appreciate that the tantalum industry is a small, niche, high value one. No more than 2,300mt of tantalum metal is consumed annually. So, in context the entire world annual demand could be comfortably contained within a small office cubicle. It is an opaque industry with little publicly available commercial information around pricing, volumes, trends, key players, market segments and share. Through consolidation, in some areas more than others, the market is made up of relatively few large players.

The primary uses of tantalum are in electronics and aerospace. The largest consumer is in the manufacture of tantalum capacitors. These are very reliable, small and have no wear-out (infinite life) – so ideally suited to critical needs such as Space, Military, Medical, Satellites, 5G Base Stations.

The second largest is in Aerospace alloys such as in commercial and military high-performance jet engines, land-based power turbines in the form of super high temperature turbine engine blades. It has assumed a ‘strategically critical’ metal designator.

As Bill Millman will explain, while tantalum is not ‘rare’ in the true sense, it does not exist in nature in its metal form but as an oxide (Ta2O5 – tantalum pentoxide). The typical level of these oxides is in the range of 100-400ppm so a great deal of effort is required to access and concentrate to a commercial level of 20-30% oxide in the form of ‘concentrate’. The markets served by tantalum and its purified oxides are by its nature niche and of the ‘mission critical’ nature and so are relatively price insensitive. This in a sense is its Achilles Heel – it would find a much wider application given its unique performance characteristics but past concerns over price stability, availability and association with ‘conflict minerals’ have all applied constraints on organic growth and speed of adoption by other applications.

Looking next to indium, the conference is fortunate to have insights from three speakers from Indium Corporation, discussing “Indium and supply chain structures”. Indium Corporation’s Supply Chain team will speak on the current trends and challenges covering the metal market, indirect material supply and the logistics. Shuyan Peng, Supply Chain Manager, will be speaking on the metals market; Yash Bhatia, Supply Chain Manager, will be speaking on indirect material supply – capital, packaging, production & department supplies, and IT; and Alexa Blasi, Global Logistics Manager, will be speaking on the current challenges faced in the international ocean, air and ground transportation industries.

Closing the conference programme with a most timely presentation is Jeff Townsend, Founder, Critical Materials Association, speaking on, “Alternative supplies of battery raw materials”. As Jeff Townsend will discuss, security of supply is prevalent now more than ever. As critical mineral supply chains face geopolitical threats, diversification of supply is paramount to mitigating risk. Demand forecasts far outweigh the projected global supply across many critical mineral commodities placing Western economies in a competition to secure enough raw materials to meet the demands of the energy transition. Jeff Townsend will outline that the ‘critical mineral’ rush poses a question, are we willing to forgo responsibility today to secure the raw materials of tomorrow’s green technologies?

A final networking luncheon will round off what promises to be an invaluable opportunity to take the pulse of the evolving minor metals sector through expert presentations from leading players, informative discussion, and all-important networking with those active in the business.

MMTA’s International Minor Metals Conference