At a meeting between officers of the South Australian Department of Mines and Amdel, held in November 1976, it was agreed that Amdel should investigate the potential for the establishment of a barium chemical industry in South Australia. The investigation was to be carried out as follows: (1) Obtain details of the Australian market for barium chemicals; including details of the types of barium chemicals currently sold, sources of supply, uses, quantities used, prices, specifications for various barium chemicals and various'grades of the different chemical, etc. This aspect is to be given most emphasis. (2) Establish grade requirements for barytes to be used for the manufacture of barium chemicals. The possibility of upgrading barytes is to be considered briefly. (3) Establish whether strontium in the barytes feed to a barium chemicals plant will have a deleterious effect on product grades; whether strontium can be separated during processing of barytes; and whether a saleable strontium product can be produced. (4) Preparation of order-of-magnitude capital and operating cost estimates for a barium chemicals plant in order to establish the minimum viable size for such a plant. (5) On the basis of (1) to (4) comment as to whether a barium chemicals plant in South Australia might be economically viable and whether an investigation in greater depth might be warranted.