JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Within the next five to ten years, South Africa would aim to increase the ratio of local consumption of fluorspar, and would make a concerted effort to increase the beneficiation of the mineral, Science and Technology Minister Mosibudi Mangena said on Tuesday.

Currently, about 95% of South Africa’s acid-grade fluorspar production is exported, with the remaining 5% consumed by the Nuclear Energy Corporation of South Africa’s (Necsa’s) chemical division, Pelchem.

Although South Africa supplies more than 5% of the source material to the global fluorochemicals industry, the country earns less than 0,1% of the R16-billion industry.

Pelchem and the Department of Science and Technology has now launched the fluorochemical expansion initiative (FEI) research and development programme to redress the deficiency through the establishment of value-adding fluorochemicals industries in South Africa.

South Africa is the third-largest producer of fluorspar in the world at an estimated 260 000 t/y. The country also has the second-largest fluorspar reserves on the globe, estimated at about 80-million metric tons.

Necsa said that the lifetime of the country’s resource was over 300 years, at the current production rate.

Pelchem was currently using fluorspar for the manufacturing of several different value-added products, including hydrogen fluoride, xenon difluoride and nitrogen trifluoride.

The company had takeoff agreements with fluorspar miners Sallies and Metorex, and consumed between 15 000 t/y and 18 000 t/y of fluorspar.

Sallies’ Witkop mine is the main supplier of fluorspar and had an estimated resource of 208-million tons. The mine produces an estimated 100 000 t/y of acid grade fluorspar.

Metorex’s Vergenoeg mine is its main source of fluorspar income, and had an estimated resource of 53-million tons. The mine produces an estimated 180 000 t/y of acid-grade fluorspar.

Market trends and import parity pricing determined the price for the fluorspar.

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