Mining company seeking wealth in oil sands waste

A Canadian mining company is gambling C$5 million on a pilot project that it hopes will show how titanium and zircon can be produced from the tailings of Syncrude Canada's oil sands mining operation.

Titanium Corp., based in Toronto, Ontario, will build and operate the world's first mineral sand processing facility at a government-sponsored research park in Regina, Saskatchewan.

Titanium is a rare and super-hard metal that is extensively used in aircraft manufacturing as well as other industries and zircon is used in a variety of industrial applications.

Titanium Corp. has a proprietary technology that it hopes will produce high-grade titanium-bearing minerals and zircon from the oil sands waste.

Chief Executive Officer George Elliott views the pilot as a "significant milestone ... a major step toward becoming the world's first major supplier" of the specialty metals from the Alberta oil sands.

Based on 2002 consumption worldwide, the Syncrude tailings stream could meet about 8 percent and 5 percent respectively of the titanium and zircon demand.