TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Chromite explorer KWG Resources has received an international search report confirming that the company’s application to patent a new process for the direct reduction of chromite using natural gas, a carbon reductant and a catalyst formulation, is original.
The search report from the US Patent Office's International Searching Authority indicated that prior art did not teach or fairly suggest anything similar. The report also indicated that the claims had industrial applicability as defined by Patent Cooperation Treaty Article 33(4), as the subject matter could be made or used in industry.
"This is a major step forward in our prosecution of this patent application. We will now determine in which countries to seek patent protection of this process, beyond Canada and the US. Our discussions and negotiations with chromite industry participants have helped us understand how and where this innovation might best be commercialised, as we have recently shared with Minister [of Natural Resources] [Greg] Rickford as he requested,” KWG president Frank Smeenk said.
KWG has a 30% interest in the Big Daddy chromite deposit, in Northern Ontario's Ring of Fire district, as well as the right to earn 80% of the Black Horse chromite project, where resources were being defined.
KWG had acquired patent interests, including a method for the direct reduction of chromite to metalised iron and chrome using natural gas. KWG subsidiary Canada Chrome had staked claims and conducted a $15-million surveying and soil testing programme for the engineering and construction of a railroad to the Ring of Fire from Exton, in Ontario.