Orbite CEO touts ‘disruptive technology' with Alumina-polymetallic project in Quebec

After years of tests, including trials at a pilot plant, Orbite Aluminae (TSX: ORT) trotted out a scoping study that, for the first time, put meat to the bones of a patented process that it claims revolutionizes the extraction of alumina and other metals from aluminous ores.

"We have a disruptive technology," Richard Boudreault, Orbite president and CEO, said in a conference call and webcast on Wednesday. "That is the key to what we are trying to achieve."

In the conference call Boudreault, striking a celebratory tone, went over the details of Orbite's proposal to use its patented process to produce aluminum, silica, magnesium oxides, and rare earth from a aluminous clay deposit on Quebec's Gaspé Peninsula.

The numbers are eye-catching. In a scoping study put together by Genivar, an engineering firm, Orbite outlined a mining project that would cost C$499 million to build but deliver a whopping C$7.7 billion net present value, before tax and discounted at five percent.

From 1 billion tonnes in resources @ 23.3 percent Al2O3 plus silica and other metals, Orbite estimates it will produce an extensive list of products including: "539,700 tonnes per year of alumina.

As for its "disruptive technology" Boudreault described how Orbite would remove multiple products from its aluminous clay in a way that is not only cheap - at about C$44 per tonne in production costs - but that also "doesn't create the infamous red mud," as Boudreault put it. Red mud is waste created through the Bayer process, which is the typical method used to extract alumina at processing facilities. Heavy in iron and silica, it needs to be impounded. But in Orbite's extraction process silica and iron are removed as saleable products - hence no red mud.

To do that, Orbite's patented technique depends on light crushing, separation using hydrochloric acid, which is recycled, and then extraction and crystallization of materials. Some products come out through acid recycling, Boudreault explained, including silica, iron and rare earths.

The potential of the production facility is only half the story, however. Clearly if the process works as effectively as Orbite hopes then many a company will be interested in licensing it - for a fee. Answering questions from analysts after his presentation, Boudreault said that Orbite had signed numerous non-disclosure agreements with "the largest groups in the world" from which there was interest in both Orbite's products and process.

He said the process has also been tested on typical bauxite, as opposed to the aluminous clays Orbite proposes to mine. Though Boudreault did not go into details, he hinted the process performed well. "We are under strict non-disclosure agreements," Boudreault said. "But the bauxite is giving us good results."

The last question from an analyst was about whether the Chinese - as a major producer of aluminum and rare earths - had approached Orbite about its project and process.

Though it was a joke, Boudreault was nonetheless mum on whether the Chinese had come knocking.

The next step for Orbite is a feasibility study due out in the first half 2012. Boudreault also said he expected the first of three processing plants comprising the alumina facility to be up and running in 2013. To that end Orbite has made headway in raising money; it completed a $58-million bought-deal financing in September.