Tungsten companies’ stock drops after Ontario bans incandescent bulbs

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This article was published 19/04/2007 (6798 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

TORONTO (CP) – Canada’s biggest tungsten miner says it’s not worried about an Ontario government ban on incandescent light bulbs, to take effect by 2012.

Stephen Leahy, CEO of Vancouver-based North American Tungsten Corp., said the light bulb ban doesn’t faze him. “I do think people have to understand this is not a significant portion of the market,” said Leahy, adding light bulbs represent less than three per cent of the global demand.

“It’s way more than balanced by the fact that there are all these pending bans on lead which is going to have to be replaced by something.”

Ontario’s ban on the bulbs, which use filaments made from the metal tungsten, is aimed at reducing energy consumption.

The restriction, the first of its kind in Canada, was announced Wednesday by Energy Minister Dwight Duncan and Environment Minister Laurel Broten.

The Ontario government is trying to reduce the province’s projected peak electricity demand by five per cent, and its own electricity use by 10 per cent, by the end of 2007.

Nova Scotia is considering a similar ban. Meanwhile, Europe has announced a ban that takes effect in 2009; Australia’s ban starts in 2010; and California is considering shutting off the bulbs by 2012.

Compact fluorescent bulbs use around 75 per cent less electricity than standard incandescent bulbs.

Tungsten is an extremely heavy metal which is inert and has a melting point of 3200 C.

The metal is too brittle to be used in manufacturing on its own, but when combined with plastics it can be bent without breaking, resulting in many new industrial and consumer applications, said Leahy.

North American Tungsten operates its CanTung mine in the Northwest Territories, which is the Western world’s largest tungsten supplier with four per cent of the global market. China produces about 80 per cent. North American Tungsten also has a large, high-grade MacTung tungsten deposit located nearby in the Yukon.

North American Tungsten (TSXV:NTC) shares closed down five cents or 3.5 per cent to $1.37 on the Toronto stock market Thursday, after rebounding from an intraday low of about $1.30, a drop of 8.4 per cent from the previous day’s close.

Shares in the company’s Canadian rival, Vancouver-based Primary Metals Inc. (TSXV:PMI), which operates a 3,000 tonne per day Panasqueira tungsten mine in Portugal and produces 1.5 per cent of the global tungsten supply, closed down 17 cents or 6.6 per cent to $2.40.

Tungsten exploration companies also saw a decline; Largo Resources Ltd. (TSXV:LGO) closed down two cents or three per cent to 63 cents, and Oriental Minerals Inc. (TSXV:OTL) closed down 10 cents or 3.3 per cent to $2.89.

However, tungsten companies weren’t the only metals and mining companies taking a hit on the Toronto market Thursday.

The sector was down two per cent, largely over worries the Chinese government could boost interest rates to deal with sizzling economic growth and high than-acceptable inflation.

The current price of tungsten, which is not traded on an exchange, is US$262 per MTU (metric tonne unit), or 10 kg.

The government announcement should not have much of an impact on the tungsten market, said Bill Vance, an institutional salesman with Haywood Securities, which has provided financing for North American Tungsten Corp.

Vance said tungsten is second in durability only to diamonds.

“My wedding band is made of tungsten,” Vance said.

The heavy metal is also being used as an environmentally safer alternative to lead in products such as fishing weights, which pollute water.

Vance said a baseball-sized chunk of tungsten weighs nearly 20 kilograms.