TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Canadian alumina producer Orbite Aluminae on Tuesday said it was recently issued patents in China and Russia covering its processes for producing alumina from aluminous ores such as clay, bauxite and other sources.

What made this significant was the fact that both China and Russia were traditionally the world’s largest alumina producers.

The patents protect the same processes as those used in Orbite’s high-purity alumina (HPA) plant in Cap-Chat, Quebec, as well as processes that would be used in its first smelter-grade alumina plant, currently at the feasibility study stage.

"No patent application filed by Orbite has ever been denied, which should alleviate concerns about the patentability of our technology in China, Russia and in other important countries, for our expanding portfolio of intellectual property,” CEO Richard Boudreault said.

Orbite’s patent portfolio now consists of nine patents in the US, Canada, Australia, China and Russia, as well as 31 pending patent applications in nine different countries covering fourteen intellectual property families.

All of Orbite’s patent applications filed since 2010 were under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), an international treaty between more than 140 Paris Convention countries and administered by the World Intellectual Property Organization.

The PCT makes it possible to seek patent protection simultaneously in a large number of countries by filing a single international patent application instead of filing several separate national applications.

HPA PLANT COMMISSIONING

Meanwhile, the commissioning and optimisation of Orbite’s first HPA plant was reported to be progressing according to plan. The company said all material processed at the plant had been sourced from Orbite’s 100%-owned aluminous clay deposit in Grande-Vallée, Quebec, and the production of multiple customer samples according to their individual order and purity specifications is expected soon.

HPA samples for customers in Europe, the US and Asia would be shipped as the material becomes available during the quarter.

Orbite said commissioning activities and optimisation for purity towards 5N (99.999%) and greater were expected to take up to two months. The company recently produced 4N-purity (99.99%) alumina and, following further optimisation, is testing for higher purities.

After installing additional alumina calcination equipment in the second quarter, the HPA production capacity was expected to gradually increase from less than one ton a day to three tons a day by the middle of the year, and up to five tons a day by the end of the year.

The company said it expected to declare commercial production by the second quarter. Orbite also expected to produce gallium and scandium oxides once a rare-metal recovery circuit is completed.

The process used by Orbite to produce HPA is unique, patented and differs significantly from the rest of the HPA industry. It is expected to produce higher purities at lower production costs than existing producers.

Further, Orbite announced that the Quebec Ministry of Finance and Economics had named the company as the winner of the PerformAS Award, which recognises Orbite’s achievements in furthering innovation and development of the chemical industry within the Province of Quebec.

This was the second national award received by Orbite this year, having been named in January by Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters, in collaboration with the Canadian government’s National Research Council of Canada Industrial Research Assistance Program, as the National Winner of the 2012 Regional Awards in New Technology.

The company’s stock rose by 7.24% on Tuesday to trade at C$2.37 apiece on the TSX.