Dr. Ahmed Atef Rasheed, managing director of Rasheed Performance Minerals (RPMinerals Group), presented a paper at the 21st Industrial Minerals Congress & Exhibition held March 26-29 at the Intercontinental Hotel in Budapest, Hungary. Dr. Rasheed’s paper titled “Developing Industrial Minerals in Egypt for Export Markets” discussed briefly the history of the development of bentonite mining and processing in Egypt and the growing supply of bentonite to the Africa, Middle East, and European markets. He mentioned that his father, Atef Rasheed, founded Egypt Mining & Drilling Chemicals Co., the first RPMinerals  company, on his discovery of bentonite in Egypt.

Atef Rasheed is now the Chairman of the Group and had worked for 26 years in the oilfield prior to his discovery of bentonite. The paper included a discussion of RPMinerals principal markets, oilfield, paper making, foundry, and civil engineering.

Dr Rasheed also discussed the success of the company’s subsidiary IDIC Specialty Drilling Chemicals in growing it’s organo-clay and organo-lignite by introducing a broad range of these products in the past five years and completing a multi-million dollar expansion to 25,000 MT per annum in late 2009. He also discussed the challenges of developing mineral resources amid a changing politico-economic landscape.