Nyngan Scandium project to produce scandium for making superior quality aluminium alloy

Scandium International Mining Corp. one of the noted junior mining companies with a management team loaded with former executives from BHP Billiton reaches DFS milestone at Nyngan project which will produce high-grade scandium to be used in making superior quality aluminium alloy.

Its large, high-grade scandium project in the Australian state of New South Wales, about 500 km northwest of Sydney, is a shallow and flat surface-mineable resource that can be put into production as early as the first quarter of 2018 at a cost of US$87 million. The company has already submitted its Environmental Impact Statement and has signed the first of what it hopes will be many off-take agreements.

The primary use of scandium, is to enhance aluminum alloys and make them superior performers. The specialty metal refines the grain structure of aluminum making it stronger. Aluminum-scandium alloys are also known for their corrosion resistance, weldability and heat-working tolerances. Scandium is a superior heat stabilizer in solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs).

The most obvious uses of scandium-enhanced aluminum alloys are in the transportation business, (aircraft and automotive and marine) where light-weighting carries a premium.

“The Russians in the Soviet era figured out how dramatic scandium’s impact was as a grain refiner and were using it in their military programs,” Putnam says. “While we knew something about it and understood what it did to aluminum, there was not really a decent source to build on, so military aircraft designers in the west retained their focus on titanium and its alloys.”

When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, Russian technology on aluminum scandium alloys was picked up by Airbus technical groups in West Germany, he says, giving a clearer picture of scandium’s impact on aluminum alloy performance. Boeing has also known about scandium aluminum alloys for just as long and has done its own research, while Alcoa patented scandium aluminum alloys long enough ago that the recipes are now off patent so anyone can make them.

“There is no secret sauce, we all know what to do with it in the aluminum alloy business,” Putnam says. “The only people left to clearly understand this opportunity are investors.”

The company already has an off-take agreement for 7,500 kilograms a year over three years with Alcereco, a private Canadian company in Kingston, Ontario that was founded by former scientists at Alcan who specialized in research and development on advanced alloys.

Putnam doesn’t believe it will be that difficult to find other off-takers to sign on.

“It won’t all be absorbed by the aircraft business, some will be in the automotive business, particularly automotive parts,” he says. “You could make a great high-speed train out of this, a good subway, or a light-rail system—the faster the train goes, the more light-weighting is important and the more important it is to pay a premium for the scandium application…we believe scandium aluminum is also going to be particularly adept in the extrusion area, and that’s a huge specialty market; extruders get strong premiums.”

Putnam, whose career includes decades as assistant treasurer at BHP, says Scandium Mining’s management team is perfectly geared towards the next leg of Nyngan’s development.