Tanco's new product line.(caesium formate)(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)

What connects Manitoba with the North Sea? The mineral pollucite, a hydrous caesium-aluminium silicate, which occurs at Bernic Lake, 170 km northeast of Winnipeg. It is being used to produce caesium formate, a brine that is now being employed successfully as a drilling fluid in offshore oil wells. An estimated 82% of the world's known occurrences of pollucite are associated with the large pegmatite at Bernic Lake, which is exploited mainly for tantalite and the lithium-aluminium silicate spodumene by Tantalum Mining Corp. (Tanco) (MJ, March 2, p.160).

Tanco, a…