HIGH PURITY QUARTZ MARKET

High Purity Quartz Sand (HPQS) is a critical mineral in strategic growth industries.

 

Following mining and crushing of raw quartz in Far North Queensland, materials are then purified to HP5, HP7 and HP9 specification in stages.

Ultra HPQ is solving a big problem - 95% of Ultra High Purity Quartz Sand is mined by Sibelco (Unimin) and The Quartz Corporation (TQC) from a single resource in the USA.

Downstream manufacturers in China, Japan and elsewhere recognise they are running concentrated resource depletion and political risk on their significant and growing manufacturing investments.

Concentration of Supply is a Major Risk to the PV/Semiconductor Industry

There are only two producing high purity sand resources – economic sources of chemically pure quartz is rare globally. New entrants will be limited.

 

Solar PV market needs a new entrant to de-risk growth. Security of Supply of high purity sand will drive the future market.

Solar PV Industry is trending to higher efficiency mono-crystalline PV

  • High Purity Quartz Sand is the only material suitable for high purity quartz crucible manufacture
  • Quartz crucibles are used to produce both mono-crystalline and multi-crystalline polysilicon
  • Mono-crystalline solar PV cells produce higher efficiency per cell than multi-crystalline cells
  • Consequently, mono-crystalline is growing its share of the solar PV cell/wafer market compared to multi-crystalline
  • Mono-crystalline polysilicon can only be manufactured using the highest grade crucibles used in the Czochralski (Cz) process “Cz Crucibles”
  • Cz Crucibles require the highest purity sand compared to other crucible types
  • The Company is targeting sales to global solar PV/semiconductor industry players (or their preferred Cz Crucible suppliers)
  • Solar PV and Semiconductor global growth is significant with US$ Billions invested and more scheduled
  • HP5 product is used as material for outer layer monocrystalline crucible with HP7 used for inner layers.
  • The China PV industry is potentially at risk due to lack of HPQS supplier diversity.

High purity sand for mono-crystalline solar PV production is growing its share of the sand market. HPQM will produce sand for mono-crystalline solar PV uses.

The Company is engaged with purchasers/buyers from the Solar PV and Semiconductor manufacturing chain.