[SMM Chromium Week Review] 'Port Stocks Draw Down as Departures Extend Gains, Zimbabwe Tightens Chrome Mining Rules'

FS Mining, a South African-registered company developing a chrome mine in Zimbabwe, is advancing plans for a US$500 million investment split between a US$100 million ferrochrome smelter and a US$400 million thermal power project, director Dr. Precious Mabuza said in an interview published September 25. The company is currently building a US$15 million wash plant as its first phase of development, and is progressing through the technical, engineering and financing stages of the planned smelter and power plant, with construction timelines dependent on completing feasibility work and securing the necessary approvals. The smelter is planned to begin with 16.5 MVA of sintering plant capacity, paired with a 25MW thermal power station in the project's first phase. Mabuza said the longer-term vision is to expand the power-generation component to 320MW, with the company hoping to extend rural electrification to communities surrounding its operations once the plant is built out. Eventual chrome production volumes will be determined once the final furnace configuration, engineering design and operating parameters are concluded, she said. Mabuza framed the investment around Zimbabwe's push for greater domestic beneficiation, noting the government has banned the export of raw minerals, including chrome, to force local value addition. She said the mine currently employs 100 people, with the company targeting 1,500 jobs at the smelter and power station once operational, and roughly 5,000 jobs across the wider value chain including mining, logistics, services and construction. The reliable baseload electricity from the planned thermal power station is central to the project's strategy, intended to support both the smelting operation and, eventually, electrification for nearby communities.

Outokumpu has unveiled EvoMaterials, a proprietary sulfidation-based technology platform designed to increase the chromium content and chromium-to-iron ratio of ferrochrome, with potential to extend to nickel, molybdenum, and metals recovered from waste streams. The company said its Kemi mine in Finland, the EU's only operating chrome mine, gives EvoMaterials a strategic starting point in enriched ferrochrome and chromium metal aimed at space, aviation and defense applications, and that over the longer term the technology could help establish a fully Western supply chain for critical chromium materials, while also being economically competitive against conventional production routes. Development began in the US in 2021, supported in part by a non-exclusive MIT patent license. Outokumpu CTO Stefan Erdmann said the process can recover critical materials from resources previously treated as waste. Testing is under way at a Massachusetts lab, with a pilot plant in New Hampshire set to scale the technology from 1 kg to 1 mt by early 2027, ahead of a targeted industrial-scale plant in 2030 at a US or European site still to be decided. CEO Kati ter Horst framed the platform as addressing the need for supply chains that are lower-carbon, geopolitically resilient and economically competitive at once.

NewPhotonics and Tower Semiconductor announced high-volume shipments of laser-integrated optical engines for AI infrastructure. The 800G and 1.6T PICs use Tower’s PH18DA silicon-photonics platform with heterogeneously integrated InP components, enabling lasers, SOAs, modulators and photodetectors on one chip. Volume shipments of 6.4T NPO chipsets are planned for H1 2027. SMM believes this signals that AI optical-interconnect demand is translating into InP device demand, supporting high-purity indium consumption. However, shipment volumes and InP intensity were not disclosed, so the near-term indium uplift cannot yet be quantified.