High Purity Quartz Resources

Today, US-based Unimin Corp./Sibelco dominates the global high purity quartz market from operations in North Carolina, USA. One of the few alternative suppliers, Norwegian Crystallites, has been producing high purity quartz from its Drag plant in western Norway and several underground and open pit mines since mid-1996 when the company changed ownership. Crystalline fillers and high purity quartz sand are produced and exported worldwide to the semiconductor, lighting and other industries.

Potential new entrants into the high purity quartz world market are Moscow-based JSC Polar Quartz, with raw material supply based on the Neroika deposit on the eastern slope of the sub-polar Urals. Kyshtym crystal quartz deposit is situated on the Eastern slopes of the South Ural mountains. In the Soviet era the plant supplied 60% of domestic high purity quartz demand basically used for clear glass for microelectronics and optical applications. Little is known about Chinese Donghai Pacific Quartz although it is understood to serve domestic markets.

In the early 1970s, Brazil was the world's main supplier of high purity quartz based on lascas, a term used to describe manually beneficiated rock crystal. Up to 1974, when the Brazilian government imposed an embargo on exports of lump quartz, export levels rose to in excess of 10,000 tpa. There have been efforts in Brazil to move more into processed high purity quartz supply, led by Mineracao Santa Rosa (MSR), one of the leading lump quartz and lasca suppliers in the country. The other main source of lascas has been Madagascar, which is still producing from small mining operations.

Given its strategic relevance in the semiconductor and photovoltaic industry many more high purity quartz projects are under development in Angola, Argentina, Australia, China, Kazakhstan, Namibia, Saudi Arabia or Turkey to name just a few in which ANZAPLAN is involved.