20 MARCH 2014www.montrealgazette.com
Gaspe plant to begin operations in early 2015, Orbite says
Edited by : AL CIRCLE
3 min read
Orbite Aluminae Inc. will sign a turnkey contract for key equipment for its Gaspé high purity alumina (HPA) project in a few days, pushing for commissioning at year-end and commercial operation early in 2015, CEO Glenn Kelly said Monday.
Outotel OYJ, a Finnish-based global leader in the design and manufacture of minerals and metals-processing systems, will build at its German subsidiary the calcinator for Orbite’s HPA plant at Cap-Chat in the Haute-Gaspésie region, he said.
Delivery is due in August and Outotel will supervise installation and startup.
Calcination is part of the purification process and Outotel will replace poorly-performing equipment that helped to delay the HPA project by a year. “It’s a big piece, costing $12 million, and including installation that’ll be $15 million,” Kelly said.
Kelly joined Orbite last June as COO and became CEO this year after co-founder Richard Boudreault abruptly departed. He had to turn a technology developer into a commercial producer of up to 99.999-per-cent pure alumina for the electronics, ceramics and coatings industries from various feedstocks — including Gaspé clays and the “red mud” waste generated by alumina plants using the Bayer bauxite refining process.
“Orbite had lost focus, became top-heavy and was bleeding cash,” Kelly told analysts in the company’s first quarterly conference call. “We’ve cut operating costs by 35 per cent, trimmed staff and put completion of the commercial HPA plant on a fast track. That will give us cash flow on which to build ahead.”
Orbite has 45 employees at its Laval technology centre, Montreal headquarters and at Cap-Chat. The HPA process design review was finished ahead of schedule and payroll will rise to 60 as the HPA plant gets into stride, the company said.
“We can see a clear path to revenue,” Kelly added.
Orbite has raised $70 million since last December. This includes $10 million from Investissement Québec, $4 million from the federal government and $40 million from U.S. private equity investor Crede Capital LLC.
Annual output will be 1,100 tonnes, rising to 1,800 tonnes in 2015-16, according to the company. HPA sells for US$25,000 to US$30,000 per tonne.
Kelly said Orbite’s next goal is to apply its technology to treat red mud generated by Bayer-based alumina plants anywhere in the world with partner Europe’s Veolia Environnement. It could also extract high-value rare metals from red mud.
The third goal is a full-scale commercial plant, located in Quebec, to produce 500,000 tonnes of smelter-grade (SGA) alumina annually with partner Glencore Xstrata buying the output for global distribution. But Kelly did not venture a timeline or cost estimate.
Alumina is normally refined from bauxite to create the intermediate material for smelting primary aluminum. Orbite’s patented technology is bauxite-free, but can treat red mud generated by refining bauxite.
Outotel OYJ, a Finnish-based global leader in the design and manufacture of minerals and metals-processing systems, will build at its German subsidiary the calcinator for Orbite’s HPA plant at Cap-Chat in the Haute-Gaspésie region, he said.
Delivery is due in August and Outotel will supervise installation and startup.
Calcination is part of the purification process and Outotel will replace poorly-performing equipment that helped to delay the HPA project by a year. “It’s a big piece, costing $12 million, and including installation that’ll be $15 million,” Kelly said.
Kelly joined Orbite last June as COO and became CEO this year after co-founder Richard Boudreault abruptly departed. He had to turn a technology developer into a commercial producer of up to 99.999-per-cent pure alumina for the electronics, ceramics and coatings industries from various feedstocks — including Gaspé clays and the “red mud” waste generated by alumina plants using the Bayer bauxite refining process.
“Orbite had lost focus, became top-heavy and was bleeding cash,” Kelly told analysts in the company’s first quarterly conference call. “We’ve cut operating costs by 35 per cent, trimmed staff and put completion of the commercial HPA plant on a fast track. That will give us cash flow on which to build ahead.”
Orbite has 45 employees at its Laval technology centre, Montreal headquarters and at Cap-Chat. The HPA process design review was finished ahead of schedule and payroll will rise to 60 as the HPA plant gets into stride, the company said.
“We can see a clear path to revenue,” Kelly added.
Orbite has raised $70 million since last December. This includes $10 million from Investissement Québec, $4 million from the federal government and $40 million from U.S. private equity investor Crede Capital LLC.
Annual output will be 1,100 tonnes, rising to 1,800 tonnes in 2015-16, according to the company. HPA sells for US$25,000 to US$30,000 per tonne.
Kelly said Orbite’s next goal is to apply its technology to treat red mud generated by Bayer-based alumina plants anywhere in the world with partner Europe’s Veolia Environnement. It could also extract high-value rare metals from red mud.
The third goal is a full-scale commercial plant, located in Quebec, to produce 500,000 tonnes of smelter-grade (SGA) alumina annually with partner Glencore Xstrata buying the output for global distribution. But Kelly did not venture a timeline or cost estimate.
Alumina is normally refined from bauxite to create the intermediate material for smelting primary aluminum. Orbite’s patented technology is bauxite-free, but can treat red mud generated by refining bauxite.
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