14 • Marine Minerals: Exploring Our New Ocean Frontier 



mining industry, a trend that accelerated in the 

 early 1980s. 



Foreign producers, including state-owned or 

 state-controlled companies, are likely to continue 

 to be the measure of competition that must be met 

 by both domestic onshore and offshore producers. 

 Only when seabed mine production is the least cost 

 source with respect to both domestic and foreign 

 onshore producers and even foreign offshore pro- 

 ducers will it become commercially viable. 



Manganese, chromium, and nickel are alloying 

 elements that are used to impart specific proper- 

 ties to steel and other metals. Their demand is 

 closely tied to the production of steel; they are usu- 

 ally added to molten metal as a ferroalloy or as an 

 intermediate product of iron enriched with the al- 

 loying element. There are no domestic reserves 

 (proven economic resources) of manganese or chro- 

 mium; therefore, the United States must import 

 substantially all of these alloying metals. 



A decade ago, concentrated ores were imported 

 for conversion to ferromanganese and ferrochro- 

 mium by U.S. ferroalloy firms to supply a then- 

 robust domestic steel industry. Since 1981, the 

 United States has imported more finished ferro- 

 chromium than it has chromite ore, and a similar 

 pattern has developed with ferromanganese. For- 

 eign producers now supply U.S. markets with about 

 90 percent of the ferrochromium consumed for the 

 domestic manufacture of chromium steel. Chro- 

 mite-producing countries are now converting ore 

 to finished ferroalloy and gaining the value added 

 through the manufacturing process before export- 

 ing to consumers. There is currently no existing 

 domestic capacity to produce ferromanganese. 



U.S. steel production has also declined in favor 

 of cheaper imports. With decreases in both U.S. 

 ferroalloy production and iron and steel produc- 

 tion, demand for chromium and manganese ores 

 (manganese is also used to desulfurize steel) for do- 

 mestic ferroalloys is likely to continue to diminish. 

 The United States is fast approaching total depen- 

 dence on foreign processing capacity of ferroalloys. 

 Even if EEZ chromite heavy sands off southern 

 Oregon were to prove economically recoverable. 



there are no ferroalloy furnaces in the Pacific North- 

 west to process the chromite produced. Any offshore 

 chromite recovered probably would be used for the 

 production of sodium dichromate, the major chem- 

 ical derivative of chromium. 



Titanium metal is used extensively in aerospace 

 applications, and its use in industrial applications 

 is expected to expand in the future. Heavy mineral 

 sands in the EEZ off the Southeastern Atlantic States 

 contain substantial concentrations of ilmenite, a 

 titanium-bearing mineral. Although ilmenite can 

 be converted to titanium metal through an inter- 

 mediate process (alteration to synthetic rutile), the 

 added expense might make it uneconomical. The 

 most probable use for ilmenite recovered from the 

 Atlantic EEZ would be as titanium pigments, since 

 two major plants currently operate in northern 

 Florida using locally mined onshore minerals; over 

 30 percent of world's titanium pigment production 

 is in the United States. 



About 90 percent of the phosphate rock mined 

 in the United States goes for the production of agri- 

 cultural fertilizers. Most of the remainder is used 

 to manufacture detergents and cleaners. Phosphate 

 is abundant throughout the world, but only a small 

 proportion is of commercial importance. Offshore 

 phosphorites are similar to those that are mined in 

 the coastal plain onshore. The United States his- 

 torically has been the leading producer of phosphate 

 rock, but its preeminence is now challenged by 

 cheaper foreign producers. 



Precious metcds — gold, platinum-group — are in 

 a class of their own. By definition, they are less 

 abundant and more difficult to find and recover 

 than other minerals, hence their enhanced value. 

 Both are used to some extent in manufacturing, the 

 platinum-group metals are used most widely. De- 

 mand for the platinum-group is expected to increase 

 in the future as Europe, Australia, and Japan adopt 

 automobile emission controls that use platinum as 

 a catalyst. Gold remains a standard of wealth, and 

 is used for jewelry. Both platinum and gold are sub- 

 ject to the whims of speculators who respond to an- 

 ticipated economic changes, market trends, world 

 political conditions, and other factors; therefore, 

 prices can change abruptly and unpredictably. 



