QIT-Fer et Titane

Wagons à Havre-Saint-Pierre - Rio Tinto Fer et Titane, Québec

QIT-Fer et Titane (QIT from its old name "Quebec Iron and Titanium") is a Canadian mining company located in Quebec. The company operates an ilmenite (titanium oxide ore) mine at Lac Allard (aka Lake Tio) in northern Quebec, and in the southern Quebec municipality of Sorel-Tracy operates refining facilities that produce titanium dioxide, pig iron, steel, and other metal products.

History

Euclid haul truck, property of the mine that uses Havre St Pierre

In 1856 prospectors found some potential in the region of Lac Allard. In 1941, the government of Quebec discovered additional resources in the area, and in 1946 after two years of exploration Kennco Explorations, the Canadian subsidiary of Kennecott, found an ore body. In 1950 the mine at Lac Allard was opened. Difficulties in the smelting process delayed the plant at Sorel until 1957.

The smelter uses a development of the 1940 Kroll process.

As of 1976, QIT was responsible for the development of an ilmenite mine in northeast South Africa, called Zulti South and Zulti North Richards Bay Minerals in KwaZulu-Natal.

As of 1977, the firm was 2/3 owned by Kennecott Copper and 1/3 owned by New Jersey Zinc, a unit of Gulf and Western Industries.

In 1981, after a worldwide fall in copper prices, Standard Oil of Ohio (SOHIO) acquired Kennecott. In 1987, British Petroleum acquired SOHIO, and Kennecott became part of BP Minerals America. In 1989, Rio Tinto Zinc (RTZ) purchased mining assets from BP.

In 1996, QIT developed a product it called UGS, which has a 94.5% TiO2 composition.

As of 2009, the company is a wholly owned subsidiary of mining firm Rio Tinto Group. In this year QIT obtained the first ore from Madagascar.

Operations

Quebec

Rio Tinto plant in Sorel Quebec

QIT operates a 26-mile (42 km) railway line, the Chemin de fer de la Rivière Romaine, from its mine to the port of Havre-Saint-Pierre on the St. Lawrence River. The line carries mined ore as well as passenger trains for workers and serves as the only access route to the mine.

As of 2008 the company employed more than 1,400 people at its plant in Sorel-Tracy, which also houses a research centre and the company’s head office. The company was the first in the world to remove iron from ilmenite on a commercial scale. Concentrates from the up-graded ore analyzing 37 per cent titanium dioxide and 42 per cent iron are calcined in rotary kilns to lower the sulphur content. Electric smelting of this product in arc furnaces with powdered anthracite coal yields a slag containing about 72 per cent titanium dioxide with 11 per cent iron, as well as a low-phosphorus iron containing about 0.12 per cent sulphur and 2.25 per cent carbon. This remelt iron is ladle-desulphurized to a low sulphur content, and other constituents adjusted as necessary before casting into pigs.

As of 2008 the annual production capacity (in metric tonnes) of the plant was: 1,100,000 SORELSLAG titanium slag, 250,000 UGS™ titanium slag, 600,000 liquid iron, 360,000 pig iron, 500,000 SORELSTEEL and 200,000 metal powders.

Madagascar

The company has a majority ownership of QIT Madagascar Minerals, the operator of the Mandena mine (for ilmenite) in Fort Dauphin, Anosy, Madagascar, with which it augments its Lac Allard feed. The concession for Mandena was granted in 1986.