Tungsten REACH consortium invites participants
Five firms - Ceratizit, Kennametal, Osram Sylvania, Sandvik and Wolfram Berghau- und Hütten - have become founding members of a consortium planning to register ten tungsten compounds under the REACH Regulation.
Secretarial and technical support to the body is to be provided by the International Tungsten Industry Association (ITIA), although the trade body will be a legally discrete entity. ITIA has already carried out a risk assessment data gap analysis for the ten compounds and is predicting a budget of $5m over four years.
The ten compounds to be covered are:
ammonium metatungstate
ammonium paratungstate
fused tungsten carbide
sodium tungstate
tungsten blue oxide
tungsten carbide
tungsten dioxide
tungsten metal
tungsten trioxide
tungstic acid
Other producers and importers are now invited to join the consortium before a deadline of 30 November 2007, after which the costs of joining will increase by 50%. Joining fees are calculated on the basis of the number of licences required by a company – one for each compound for which it requires a right of reference to data – and the tonnages of each that it imports or produces. A minimum fee of $10,000 is to be deposited on joining the consortium.
ITIA says it will keep under review whether there is a need to also cover ferro tungsten after guidance on the treatment of alloys under the Regulation is finalised (Chemical Watch 11 September 2007).
The association is notably making its guidelines on REACH available in Chinese to accommodate interest in participation from the growing hard metals industry there. Indeed, several EU firms such as Sandvik and Kennametal have also located production facilities in China.
Around 60% of tungsten is used in the production of hard metals or cemented carbides used to make mining and engineering tools. It has many other applications including, due to its high melting point, its widespread use as a filament in incandescent light bulbs.
Further information
Sign up to the email alert
To receive our FREE email news alerts, enter your email address below.
