by Ian Lyall –
Proactive Investors for This Is Money
Sticking with the risers for a little while longer: it was a good week for AIM-listed Tertiary Minerals #TYM which doubled in value on Friday.
This came after the German group Possehl said it would help the junior miner develop its three main projects.
Tertiary is London’s only publically-traded fluorspar company. Fluorspar? No, me neither.
Anyhoo, here’s a quick cut-out-and-keep we purloined from the Proactive Investors website.
Fluorspar is the mineral form of calcium fluoride – CaF2.
When mined, it is separated into two main grades – acidspar is at least 97 per cent calcium fluoride, while metspar (metallurgical spar) is a much lower purity – at between 60 per and 85 per cent.
The latter is used for iron smelting, and to manufacture glass, steel, enamels and aluminium products, while acidspar is generally converted to hydrofluoric acid, by combining it with sulphuric acid.
This can then be made into other things like fluorocarbons, which are used in Teflon (the stuff your frying pan is coated with), fridges, freezers and air conditioning units.
It is perhaps worth noting that new environmentally friendly refrigerants, required by regulation, contain more fluorine than the older ozone depleting ones.
Physiomics and Tertiary aside, it was a fairly dour week for investors in the junior market with the AIM All Share down 0.8 per cent over the last five trading days to 1,022.57. It did, however, outperform the FTSE 100, which had a rather rough week as it posted a 1.3 per cent decline.
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