AMMG to focus on HPA production following technical review

Australia Minerals and Mining Group Limited (AMMG) is pleased to announce it has a clear strategy and focus on becoming a high purity alumina (HPA) producer. In his first major undertaking since his appointment as Managing Director last month, Mr. Iggy Tan, a highly experienced mining executive and chemical engineer has conducted a technical review of the previous AMMG testwork, proposed process flow design and integrated plant study to reaffirm the technical viability of producing HPA from the Company’s substantial aluminous clay resources near Meckering, Western Australia.

The review concluded that most current HPA producers are using an expensive and highly processed feed stock material such as aluminium metal to produce 99.99% HPA quality product. AMMG are one of the only two companies in the world that publicly report that they can produce 99.99% HPA product directly from an ore feed stock, such as aluminous clay. In just the smart phone sector, companies like Apple and Huwei have announced their intention to use sapphire scratch resistant glass (made from HPA) for their next generations of smartphones. Apple’s $578 million investment in sapphire glass technology company GTAT, suggests that Apple is committed to using sapphire in all its future iPhones.

Sales of smartphones globally are estimated to exceed 1 billion annually by 2016. Similarly the $13B annual light emitting diode (LED) market continues to grow with more lighting, display, signs, TVs and motor vehicles moving to the much energy efficient LEDs, and is forecast to keep growing at >60% annually from 2013 to 2015, leading to robust growth in demand for HPA.

The Global HPA market was valued at 19,040 tonnes in 2014 and is expected to increase to 48,230 tonnes by 2018, growing at a CAGR of 27.89% according to Technavio Research.