Post by Archer on Sept 11, 2007 10:50:24 GMT -6
I saw this article and thought it was interesting to review with regards to titanium watches. It looks like the demand rise from other industries might cause a shortage, and cause watch prices to rise in the short term. Then there might be a lowering of prices (yeah right! 
) in the long term if the technologies to reduce production costs pay off......
Tweaking Titanium's Recipe
9/11/2007
Copyright © 2007 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Firms, Pentagon Search for New Way To Make Metal as Demand Surges
Titanium is the world's ninth-most-common element, but a wide range of companies and the U.S. government worry they can't get their hands on enough.
Boeing Co., for example, recently finalized a joint venture with Russia's VSMPO-Avisma Corp. to build a titanium-forging factory by 2008 in Russia to ensure adequate supplies for its new 787 jetliner. The tough yet lightweight metal makes up about 15% of the 787, contributing to the overall fuel efficiency that has made the plane a hot seller.
"In aerospace, supply is getting to be quite an issue," says Russ Young, a spokesman at Boeing.
As titanium prices rise and the U.S. increasingly relies on overseas sources, DuPont Co. and several start-up companies are working with the Department of Defense to find a new way to produce the metal. Investments are modest at this point, but proponents say a breakthrough could transform the premium, hard-to-make metal into a commodity, much as smelting technology revolutionized and streamlined the production of aluminum a century ago.
It is unclear whether current efforts will pan out. If they do, manufacturers of everything from military and civilian jet aircraft to medical devices to bicycles could benefit. Meanwhile, current titanium manufacturers would have to adapt.
"It's certainly a game-changer if you can lower the cost," says Kuni Chen, a metals analyst with Bank of America in New York.
Titanium, commonly found trapped in sands, rocks and the Earth's crust, is more corrosion-resistant and has a higher strength-to-weight ratio than many other metals. It also is compatible with composite material, making it ideal to use in building aircraft as well as other products such as building materials, desalination plants and parts of automobiles.
But making titanium metal is complicated. The current method involves extracting titanium minerals from beach sands found in places such as Africa and Australia and separating the heavier, titanium-bearing sands from the lighter sands. Companies process the sand through a multistep method using chlorine, carbon and magnesium to make a hard, porous material called sponge. The sponge is then melted in furnaces to produce titanium ingots. The titanium ingot is forged into semifinished round or square products called billets, then made into titanium plates, sheets, bars or other products.
The new methods of making titanium would bypass one or more of those steps. They use different chemical process technologies to reduce the titanium sand into a pure titanium powder rather than sponge. The powder can be directly compressed into metal parts, eliminating the need to make an ingot.
The proponents say the new methods will eventually expand titanium supply and bring down titanium prices. "It is our intention to substantially reduce the cost of titanium," said Leo Christodoulou, who heads the materials science programs at the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or Darpa. "Our goal for the program is for the cost of titanium to [eventually] be less than $4 a pound in the primary billet form." That is about one-half to one-tenth of the current price, depending on the grade being sold.
It could also reduce U.S. dependence on imports. The U.S. imported roughly 25,100 metric tons of titanium sponge in 2006, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, double the domestic capacity to make sponge and double the level of imports from 2004. Although the tonnage of titanium imports seems small, its dollar value is hefty. While basic steel generally costs less than $1,000 a metric ton, titanium sponge costs more than $10,000 per metric ton, according to the survey.
The material-science division of Darpa has doled out more than $20 million in research grants to the various projects. The organization, which acts as a venture-capital agency of the government, gave a $1.2 million grant to start-up International Titanium Powder LLC in 2004 to reduce titanium to a powder metal. In 2003, it gave major titanium producer Titanium Metals Corp., or Timet, $12.3 million for researching its method, which it eventually shelved. A joint venture between DuPont and start-up MER Corp., of Tucson, Ariz., to make titanium powder received $5.7 million in 2006.
ITP is in the early stages of commercialization, making and selling several hundred pounds of titanium per month at its pilot facility in Lockport, Ill. Taras Lyssenko, director of government relations and business development for ITP, said his company hopes to make 50 million pounds of titanium annually in five years. "Our objective is to make titanium a commodity," he said.
DuPont, of Wilmington, Del., is a major producer of titanium dioxide pigment, used for paints, plastics and other products. The new processes don't apply to that business, which is a separate industry. But since it mines and buys so many titanium minerals, it hopes to become a larger raw-material provider to titanium makers and possibly a metal or metal products producer itself.
"We believe that if we can make titanium metal parts available at lower costs, the market will grow," says Michael Hyzny, titanium venture manager for DuPont. The company opened a titanium metal plant with Honeywell International Inc. late last year in Salt Lake City, to convert titanium sponge into metal powder.
Major U.S. titanium producers have benefited from the boom. Timet, for example, saw its net sales rise 58% in 2006 from 2005 and saw its net income nearly double to $247 million in 2006. Still, it isn't as active in the Darpa research efforts. Timet President Chuck Entrekin said his company had pursued a new technology with a Darpa research contract that ended in 2005 but declined further comment. Darpa says Timet's project wasn't as competitive as the others in development.
Timet is the largest U.S. titanium sponge producer at present with 12,600 metric tons of sponge-making capacity per year but could be surpassed by Allegheny Technologies Corp. of Pittsburgh, which plans to expand its sponge-making capacity next year to 21,000 metric tons, up from 5,900 this year. The other large titanium metal maker in the U.S., RTI International Inc. of Ohio, isn't a major producer of titanium sponge. Executives at Allegheny Technologies declined to comment. Executives at RTI International weren't available.
One smaller titanium producer says the new processes are generating a good deal of buzz but doubts the "titanium revolution" will take hold quickly. "I don't think it's the Holy Grail," said Frank Perryman, a partner in Houston, Pa., titanium producer Perryman Co. "It's in the right direction. There's not going to be one home run. There has never been a home run in any metal. It takes little baby steps."
) in the long term if the technologies to reduce production costs pay off......Tweaking Titanium's Recipe
9/11/2007
Copyright © 2007 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Firms, Pentagon Search for New Way To Make Metal as Demand Surges
Titanium is the world's ninth-most-common element, but a wide range of companies and the U.S. government worry they can't get their hands on enough.
Boeing Co., for example, recently finalized a joint venture with Russia's VSMPO-Avisma Corp. to build a titanium-forging factory by 2008 in Russia to ensure adequate supplies for its new 787 jetliner. The tough yet lightweight metal makes up about 15% of the 787, contributing to the overall fuel efficiency that has made the plane a hot seller.
"In aerospace, supply is getting to be quite an issue," says Russ Young, a spokesman at Boeing.
As titanium prices rise and the U.S. increasingly relies on overseas sources, DuPont Co. and several start-up companies are working with the Department of Defense to find a new way to produce the metal. Investments are modest at this point, but proponents say a breakthrough could transform the premium, hard-to-make metal into a commodity, much as smelting technology revolutionized and streamlined the production of aluminum a century ago.
It is unclear whether current efforts will pan out. If they do, manufacturers of everything from military and civilian jet aircraft to medical devices to bicycles could benefit. Meanwhile, current titanium manufacturers would have to adapt.
"It's certainly a game-changer if you can lower the cost," says Kuni Chen, a metals analyst with Bank of America in New York.
Titanium, commonly found trapped in sands, rocks and the Earth's crust, is more corrosion-resistant and has a higher strength-to-weight ratio than many other metals. It also is compatible with composite material, making it ideal to use in building aircraft as well as other products such as building materials, desalination plants and parts of automobiles.
But making titanium metal is complicated. The current method involves extracting titanium minerals from beach sands found in places such as Africa and Australia and separating the heavier, titanium-bearing sands from the lighter sands. Companies process the sand through a multistep method using chlorine, carbon and magnesium to make a hard, porous material called sponge. The sponge is then melted in furnaces to produce titanium ingots. The titanium ingot is forged into semifinished round or square products called billets, then made into titanium plates, sheets, bars or other products.
The new methods of making titanium would bypass one or more of those steps. They use different chemical process technologies to reduce the titanium sand into a pure titanium powder rather than sponge. The powder can be directly compressed into metal parts, eliminating the need to make an ingot.
The proponents say the new methods will eventually expand titanium supply and bring down titanium prices. "It is our intention to substantially reduce the cost of titanium," said Leo Christodoulou, who heads the materials science programs at the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or Darpa. "Our goal for the program is for the cost of titanium to [eventually] be less than $4 a pound in the primary billet form." That is about one-half to one-tenth of the current price, depending on the grade being sold.
It could also reduce U.S. dependence on imports. The U.S. imported roughly 25,100 metric tons of titanium sponge in 2006, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, double the domestic capacity to make sponge and double the level of imports from 2004. Although the tonnage of titanium imports seems small, its dollar value is hefty. While basic steel generally costs less than $1,000 a metric ton, titanium sponge costs more than $10,000 per metric ton, according to the survey.
The material-science division of Darpa has doled out more than $20 million in research grants to the various projects. The organization, which acts as a venture-capital agency of the government, gave a $1.2 million grant to start-up International Titanium Powder LLC in 2004 to reduce titanium to a powder metal. In 2003, it gave major titanium producer Titanium Metals Corp., or Timet, $12.3 million for researching its method, which it eventually shelved. A joint venture between DuPont and start-up MER Corp., of Tucson, Ariz., to make titanium powder received $5.7 million in 2006.
ITP is in the early stages of commercialization, making and selling several hundred pounds of titanium per month at its pilot facility in Lockport, Ill. Taras Lyssenko, director of government relations and business development for ITP, said his company hopes to make 50 million pounds of titanium annually in five years. "Our objective is to make titanium a commodity," he said.
DuPont, of Wilmington, Del., is a major producer of titanium dioxide pigment, used for paints, plastics and other products. The new processes don't apply to that business, which is a separate industry. But since it mines and buys so many titanium minerals, it hopes to become a larger raw-material provider to titanium makers and possibly a metal or metal products producer itself.
"We believe that if we can make titanium metal parts available at lower costs, the market will grow," says Michael Hyzny, titanium venture manager for DuPont. The company opened a titanium metal plant with Honeywell International Inc. late last year in Salt Lake City, to convert titanium sponge into metal powder.
Major U.S. titanium producers have benefited from the boom. Timet, for example, saw its net sales rise 58% in 2006 from 2005 and saw its net income nearly double to $247 million in 2006. Still, it isn't as active in the Darpa research efforts. Timet President Chuck Entrekin said his company had pursued a new technology with a Darpa research contract that ended in 2005 but declined further comment. Darpa says Timet's project wasn't as competitive as the others in development.
Timet is the largest U.S. titanium sponge producer at present with 12,600 metric tons of sponge-making capacity per year but could be surpassed by Allegheny Technologies Corp. of Pittsburgh, which plans to expand its sponge-making capacity next year to 21,000 metric tons, up from 5,900 this year. The other large titanium metal maker in the U.S., RTI International Inc. of Ohio, isn't a major producer of titanium sponge. Executives at Allegheny Technologies declined to comment. Executives at RTI International weren't available.
One smaller titanium producer says the new processes are generating a good deal of buzz but doubts the "titanium revolution" will take hold quickly. "I don't think it's the Holy Grail," said Frank Perryman, a partner in Houston, Pa., titanium producer Perryman Co. "It's in the right direction. There's not going to be one home run. There has never been a home run in any metal. It takes little baby steps."