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Sample report for adhesive category. Other reports may vary in format.
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| MSAR 2005 Chapter 9 - Increasing Significance of Zircon
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The increasing significance of zircon to the titanium minerals industry
Extracts from Mineral Sands Annual Review 2005
In 1994, TZMI launched its first specialist publication, The Changing International Outlook for Zircon, published at a time when zircon production and prices had declined following the second price spike in 1989-1990. Since that time, TZMI has published five additional studies on zircon, the last released in December 2003 entitled, The Global Zircon Industry: The challenge of supply deficits. As that title implies, the prognosis in the absence of new discoveries was for continuing supply deficits, which would impact considerably on both zircon prices and potential substitution or thrifting of use in some end-market markets. This new situation contrasted sharply with that which has existed since the 1950s, where there was always adequate zircon supplies to meet demand. There has now been a fundamental shift in the ranking and value of zircon as a product of mineral sands mining.
Zircon (ZrO2.SiO2) is by far the most abundant source of zirconium. The only other significant naturally occurring mineral is baddeleyite (ZrO2), a relatively rare mineral that historically has only been mined from a few operations, and is now in short supply.
To date, zircon has only been produced in conjunction with the mining of titanium minerals or, occasionally, alluvial tin and gold, but never in its own right. Consequently, zircon has always been seen, at best, as a co-product and quite often as a by-product of other more commercially important minerals. The continuing elevation of its status from by-product role to an important co-product role in the titanium minerals industry, is examined in this special feature.
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1 - Background
2 - Conclusions from the 1999 review
3 - Brief historical overview
4 - Supply and demand relationships
5 - Revenue contributions
6 - Zircon surpasses rutile in importance
7 - Major trends over the past 10 years
8 - Outlook to 2010
9 - Conclusions
10 References
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