7 November 2011

5N Plus expands Asian activities

5N Plus Inc of Montreal, Canada, a producer and provider of high-purity metals, compounds and wafers for electronic applications, has reached an agreement to acquire the remaining 40% ownership interest in the joint venture Lao Industrial Resources Co Ltd of Vientiane, Laos, which focuses on refining metals (including tellurium).

5N Plus is also to set up a gallium chemicals plant in Korea in conjunction with Hong Kong-based Golden Harvest, a producer of primary gallium. 5N Plus and Golden Harvest have been joint venture partners in a gallium refining facility in Shenzhen, China since 2009. The new Korean facility will produce gallium chemicals for the growing LED market and is expected to be operational by mid-2012.

“Expansion of our activities in Asia is part of our growth strategy as we expect to see increasing demand for our products in this part of the world,” says president & CEO Jacques L’Écuyer. “Our Laos and new Korean facilities will be instrumental in allowing us to leverage this demand and the corresponding business opportunities,” he adds.

Founded in 2000, 5N Plus currently focuses on specialty high-purity metals such as tellurium, cadmium, selenium, germanium, indium, antimony and bismuth and also produces related II-VI semiconducting compounds such as cadmium telluride (CdTe), cadmium sulphide (CdS) and indium antimonide (InSb) as precursors for the growth of crystals for electronic applications, including solar photovoltaic, radiation detector and infrared markets. 5N Plus owns four material subsidiaries: 5N PV GmbH (Eisenhuttenstadt, Germany), Firebird Technologies Inc (Trail, BC, Canada), 5N Plus Corp (DeForest, WI, USA) and Sylarus Technologies LLC (St George, UT, USA). Also, in April, 5N Plus acquired MCP Group SA of Tilly, Belgium (the world’s leading producer and distributor of bismuth and bismuth chemicals, and a supplier of specialty metals including gallium, indium, selenium and tellurium). MCP owned 60% of Lao Industrial Resources.

Tags: 5N Plus Recovered gallium Tellurium

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