News

November 12, 2008

Tertiary Minerals May Be Onto A Fluorspar Winner At Storuman

By Charles Wyatt

Tertiary Minerals has kissed a number of frogs in its time. The last one was the Ghurayyah tantalum–niobium deposit in Saudi Arabia, which now appears to be stuck deep in a bureaucratic bog while the Saudis wrestle with the terms on which they will issue a mining license. Mind you, this frog could still turn out to be a Saudi prince if the terms prove sensible and the project lives up to its promises. In the meantime, however, Patrick Cheetham, executive chairman, has come up with a Nordic prince for the company to be going on with in the form of the Storuman fluorspar deposit in the mining friendly Vasterbotten district of northern Sweden.

Most people have heard of fluorspar - there is even the historic Blue John mine in Derbyshire where blue-purple fluorite was mined for its ornamental value – but few know about its commercial uses. Fluorspar or fluorite? - the names seem to be interchangeable though fluorite tends to be the term used for the mineral and fluorspar the term for the commercial material. Either way, it is the main industrial source of fluorine, which is used in the manufacture of amongst other things, refrigerants,...