Post by paperwhite on Aug 31, 2004 11:03:22 GMT -5
Saw this on another board:
This was in response to someone else bringing up Azco:
Pierce is a good guy with strong management talent. Azco is trying to get its mica mine going. Last I talked to Pierce they had a need to market the silica byproduct to make the operation workable. The mica is sold to Revlon for cosmetics applications and they also produce a grade for Dupont for paints. Total mica contents in the pegmatites they are mining makes it very thin on the margin, but they do have a market for the 80 plus percent silica sand that now goes to tails. Its too arkosic and Fe rish for the glass, but there are producers of jointing compound in the Phoenix area who current import Oklahoma fine sand. Selling to that market should allow reasonible cash flow to Azco operations.
They have some potential for growth because of the debacle at OGLE. Ogleby Norton really screwed the pooch by jumping into Great Lake transport systems in a declining steel market. OGLE also is the big mica producer. With OGLE cash strapped and in BK court, they are not rising to meet new mica demand for about 10,000 tons of wet ground per year. Wet Ground mica is running at about $978 a ton.
As far as I know, they are not into gold, though they do have an old copper property besides the IMs they are actually producing.
This was in response to someone else bringing up Azco:
Pierce is a good guy with strong management talent. Azco is trying to get its mica mine going. Last I talked to Pierce they had a need to market the silica byproduct to make the operation workable. The mica is sold to Revlon for cosmetics applications and they also produce a grade for Dupont for paints. Total mica contents in the pegmatites they are mining makes it very thin on the margin, but they do have a market for the 80 plus percent silica sand that now goes to tails. Its too arkosic and Fe rish for the glass, but there are producers of jointing compound in the Phoenix area who current import Oklahoma fine sand. Selling to that market should allow reasonible cash flow to Azco operations.
They have some potential for growth because of the debacle at OGLE. Ogleby Norton really screwed the pooch by jumping into Great Lake transport systems in a declining steel market. OGLE also is the big mica producer. With OGLE cash strapped and in BK court, they are not rising to meet new mica demand for about 10,000 tons of wet ground per year. Wet Ground mica is running at about $978 a ton.
As far as I know, they are not into gold, though they do have an old copper property besides the IMs they are actually producing.