QIT Madagascar Minerals (QMM) is a mining company located in the Fort-Dauphin region of southeastern

Madagascar Madagascar (; mg, Madagasikara, ), officially the Republic of Madagascar ( mg, Repoblikan'i Madagasikara, links=no, ; french: République de Madagascar), is an island country in the Indian Ocean, approximately off the coast of East Africa ...

. After roughly 20 years of exploration, negotiations, and preliminary work, the company began production of the

titanium dioxide Titanium dioxide, also known as titanium(IV) oxide or titania , is the inorganic compound with the chemical formula . When used as a pigment, it is called titanium white, Pigment White 6 (PW6), or CI 77891. It is a white solid that is insolubl ...

ore,

ilmenite Ilmenite is a titanium-iron oxide mineral with the idealized formula . It is a weakly magnetic black or steel-gray solid. Ilmenite is the most important ore of titanium and the main source of titanium dioxide, which is used in paints, printing ...

. Initial capacity is projected at 750,000

tonne The tonne ( or ; symbol: t) is a unit of mass equal to 1000 kilograms. It is a non-SI unit accepted for use with SI. It is also referred to as a metric ton to distinguish it from the non-metric units of the short ton ( United State ...

s per year, with future phases of development potentially expanding capacity to 2,000,000 tonnes per year. The mine is 80% owned by

QIT-Fer et Titane QIT-Fer et Titane (QIT from its old name "Quebec Iron and Titanium") is a Canadian mining company located in Quebec. The company operates an ilmenite (titanium oxide ore) mine at Lake Tio in northern Quebec, and in southern Quebec operates refining ...

, a wholly owned subsidiary of the mining giant

Rio Tinto Group Rio Tinto Group is an Anglo-Australian Multinational corporation, multinational company that is the world's second-largest metals and mining corporation (behind BHP). The company was founded in 1873 when of a group of investors purchased a mine ...

; the remaining 20% is owned by the government of Madagascar.

Hybrid energy

In 2021 Rio Tinto signed a power purchase agreement with independent power producer. The facility will combine 8MW of solar, 12MW of onshore wind and a battery energy storage system to provide renewable power to Rio Tinto’s QMM ilmenite mine in Fort Dauphin.hybrid to power Rio Tinto mine
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References

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External links

Official website
Rio Tinto (corporation) subsidiaries Titanium mining Mining companies of Madagascar