RTI International Metals Inc. is to provide the titanium alloy for a USD 1.4 billion nickel-cobalt mining facility being developed by Inco Ltd at Goro in the French Overseas Territory of New Caledonia. The Goro project is the centrepiece of Inco’s growth strategy and will produce nickel at low cost using its proprietary hydrometallurgical and solvent extraction process. Titanium is required due to temperature and pressure demands of the heat exchanger system in the pressure-acid-leach process used to recover nickel from the laterite ore. RTI was selected as it produces a corrosion-resistant, ruthenium-enhanced titanium alloy, ASTM Grade 28, which it originally developed for the oil & gas industry. The project, expected to be in production in late 2004, will require approximately 500 tonnes of the alloy, which RTI will produce in the third and fourth quarters of 2002.
