IperionX (IPX) - Key 2023 Catalysts: Ti Metal Contracts & Permitting at Titan

IperionX Ltd. has the goal of creating a 100% recyclable, sustainable and low-cost integrated US titanium metal supply chain. The company has two core businesses to reach its goal: its minerals and its metals technologies businesses. The minerals side of the company consists of the Titan project, the largest titanium deposit in Northern America located in west Tennessee.  The metals technologies side of the company is based on its HAMR and GSD processes.

The company mid-2022 announced a scoping study for its Titan project. The study shows a 25-year life of mine, an after-tax NPV8% of USD$ 692 million, an annual life of mine EBITDA of USD$ 117 million, an after-tax IRR of 40% and a payback period of 1.9 years.

IperionX Ltd. announced on the 18^th of January 2023 that it had won the Air Force Research Laboratory Grand Challenge. The challenge involved selecting the most commercially promising technology for producing titanium metal powders from scrap titanium and rejuvenating out-of-spec titanium powders for use in additive manufacturing. The outcome of the challenge shows the commercial and technological viability of the company.  

The company also announced on the 6^th of February 2023 that it had partnered with the Carver Pump Company Inc. to additively manufacture titanium pump components for the U.S. Navy. The centrifugal pumps built by the Carver Pump Company Inc. have been used by the Navy for the past 60 years.

IperionX Ltd. plans to continue advancing both the minerals and metals aspects of the company with its 2023 value creation catalysts including the advancement of its Titan project and the build-out and construction of its Titanium Metal Facility in Halifax County, Virginia.

2022 in review

IperionX Ltd. experienced a busy and constructive 2022, with the company reaching milestones including the company winning the Air Force Research Laboratory Grand Challenge, Officine Panerai placing its first purchase order for titanium watch cases, publishing a scoping study for the company’s Titan project and advancing its pilot production facility in Utah to an industrial size operation. Anastasios Arima, the Co-Founder and CEO of IperionX Ltd. states that the company’s achievements and milestones reached were obtained in a downed economy.

“Last year was a great year for us, even though the backdrop of the market was quite volatile with the way inflation ended up over the last 6 months of the year, but we still were able to achieve a lot.”

The company mid-2022 announced a scoping study for its Titan project. The study shows a 25-year life of mine, an after-tax NPV8% of USD$ 692 million, an annual life of mine EBITDA of USD$ 117 million, an after-tax IRR of 40% and a payback period of 1.9 years. Arima explains that this important milestone will enable the company to permit the envisioned future operation and conduct metallurgical test work.  

“We completed our Preliminary Economic Assessment and our Scoping Study on the Titan project, which is an important strategic asset for us. It is the largest titanium mineral resource in North America. We started looking at the permitting of that asset and also ahead of the Pre-Feasibility Study, looked at completing the Feasibility and therefore metallurgical test work on the Titan project.”

Arima explains that the company was also able to advance its pilot facility in Utah from an R&D facility to an industrialised facility, through amongst others the employment of the correct specialists and capital investment.

“Last year, we took over operations of the titanium metal industrial pilot facility, we’re calling it, in Salt Lake City, Utah, which was built by Dr Zak Fang and funded originally by the Department of Energy, the ARPA-E program within the Department of Energy. We took over operations of that at the start of last year, and we spent quite a bit of capital on taking it from what was a research and development facility to a semi or industrialised facility.”

Air Force Research Laboratory Grand Challenge

IperionX Ltd. announced on the 18^th of January 2023 that it had won the Air Force Research Laboratory Grand Challenge. The challenge involved selecting the most commercially promising technology for producing titanium metal powders from scrap titanium and rejuvenating out-of-spec titanium powders for use in additive manufacturing. The outcome of the challenge shows the commercial and technological viability of the company.  Arima explains that the company has an opportunity through winning the challenge to be ideally positioned to create future initiatives with the Air Force.

“Earlier this year, as soon as we came back from New Year, we won an Air Force Grand Challenge, essentially the ability to recycle the titanium metal and metal scrap for the Air Force in the 3D printing applications that we’re using today, which will eventually lead to a lot of other Air Force resulting programs. We expect it to lead to a lot of other titanium recycling programs within the Air Force. The Air Force is a major user of titanium metal. Currently, fighter jets like the FD5, and future weapon systems as well.”

The Air Force Research Laboratory Grand Challenge is due to the challenges faced regarding the costs associated with manufacturing titanium equipment components as well as the economics involved in recycling of the components.

“They’ve been looking at reducing the cost of the raw materials supply chain in additive manufacturing, which is one of the largest costs of 3D printing or additive manufacturing and in addition to that, they’ve been looking at how they can recycle these new types of products they’re making from additive manufacturing in titanium metal. So, in the middle of last year, they put out this Grand Challenge.”

Traditional titanium processing systems involve the Kroll process, which sees titanium metal sponge processed into titanium ingots. The ingots are then processed to titanium wire which is then fed to a plasma or gas atomisation system to produce spherical titanium powder. The proprietary technology of IperionX Ltd. does away with the traditional energy-intensive nature of titanium processing as well as its costly nature.

“We actually just take scrap, we put it through our process, and we come out naturally with powder. In the process as well, we spheroidize it, not using any melting on anything, and just de-oxygenate it and come out with powder. Because of that patented process, it completely upends the supply chain. We’ve talked about being 50% cheaper than the current supply chain - I think we’re going to be a lot cheaper than that as we scale…”

Arima explains that the company can offer a downstream user such as the Air Force a reduced lead time for equipment components, that instead of a lead time of months, IperionX Ltd. is able to produce the required component in a few weeks.

“…as the Air Force moves to new weapons generation systems, it also looks at repairs and maintenance as well. Say you have a part that’s broken; instead of waiting for 6 months for it to come from overseas, you can just immediately print it with titanium - we can actually take that broken part and print it within a few weeks, recycle it and print it.”

Carver Pump Company partnership

IperionX Ltd. announced on the 6^th of February 2023 that it had partnered with the Carver Pump Company Inc. to additively manufacture titanium pump components for the U.S. Navy. Arima explains that similar to the Air Force the navy faces the challenge of long lead times on equipment components for its ships.

“The US Navy has a very big problem around cast parts. These traditional big cast parts, whether it’s pumps or pump impellers which are used in every service ship because of corrosion resistance and strength, these casting houses don’t exist in the United States anymore, the big ones. The casting houses that are left in the world are in China, Russia, the UK, and Norway, and even those are under pressure from the Chinese and Russian casting houses.”

The centrifugal pumps built by the Carver Pump Company Inc. have been used by the Navy for the past 60 years. Which leads to the company being the ideal partner for IperionX Ltd.

“Carver Pumps is one of the major suppliers of pumps to the US Navy. We can take that component, which is just a worn-out titanium metal component, throw it in our process, recycle it, make it into powder, and immediately print it, cutting that lead time down from 12 months to maybe 6 to 8 weeks. The Navy has got a big focus on that because these cast parts are big, and there’s a big, big issue, especially today when the US Navy is going through a big revitalisation program”

IperionX Ltd. currently can produce various prototypes according to Arima. The company will throughout the year advance and expand its demonstration facility in Virginia to be able to accommodate the creation of larger components.

“There are some very big parts, but there are also some small parts, which we have the capacity to prototype today. It doesn’t have to wait for the scaled-up facility. We can prototype and start qualifying some of the components now, but definitely, once we are fully operational at the end of this year, we can be doing a lot more as well.”

Future Initiatives

IperionX Ltd. plans to continue advancing both the minerals and metals aspects of the company with its 2023 value creation catalysts including the advancement of its Titan project and the build-out and construction of its Titanium Metal Facility in Halifax County, Virginia.

Arima believes that one of the next logical steps for the company is conducting work for the US Army, seeing as it has a foothold in the US Airforce and US Navy. He uses the M777 howitzer as an example of an ideal entry point in the army, with various other pieces of equipment also having the potential to be produced by IperionX Ltd.

“The M777 is a lightweight howitzer, so you can pick it up with a helicopter. It’s all made out of titanium, and there has been talk of restarting the manufacturing of those artillery pieces. All that titanium used to actually come from Russia, so Russia went to the UK to make cast parts, and then to America to be assembled. I don’t think Russia is probably going to allow us to make artillery that’s going to shoot against them, so you need to look for other places to make that titanium metal and we can make it pretty easily.”

The company believes that other sectors such as luxury goods, electronics and other non-defence industries hold value creation potential for the company. A sector which Arima notes may have potential is the production of chemical pumps for the chemical production industry.  

“You use titanium metal in pumps for the US Navy. If we make a sustainable titanium pump that’s also cheaper because we can make titanium metal cheaper, we can introduce it more into the chemical industries where they want to use titanium pumps.”

IperionX Ltd. plans to be operational at its titanium plant in Virginia at the end of 2023 and has initiated securing long lead-time items for the plant.

“We’ve been securing the long lead time items over the last 6 months, and we expect to be operational in that plant at the end of this year. So, that will take our capacity to about 125,000 metric tons per annum of titanium metal powders.”

IperionX Ltd. plans to continue positioning itself as a crucial part of the US titanium metal supply chain in the coming year. The company aims to further initiate and undertake supply agreements with various equipment manufacturers (OEMs) in the future.

To find out more, go to the IperionX website