ASX-listed Mineral Resources Commodities (MRC) has settled the matter of selecting a new black economic-empowerment (BEE) partner and is awaiting comment from the Department of Minerals and Energy (DME) on the matter.

MRC’s GM for South Africa, John Barnes, tells Mining Weekly that the mining rights for the Tormin mineral sands project will be implemented after final comment from the DME.

This follows after the company reviewed its options with regard to its BEE partner for the Tormin project, owing to the failure of its existing partner to meet its contractual and funding obligation.
The company’s South African subsidiary, Mineral Sands Resources, was granted the mining rights for the project near Lutzville, in the Northern Cape, from the DME in March this year.

The company signed the mining rights on April 25, 2008, along with the environmental management plan (EMP), which was when the mining rights became effective.

“It is intended that final engineering will be completed so that financial close on the project will occur within six months, with production likely to begin in the first half of 2009,” says Barnes.

MRC MD Mark Caruso indicates that the granting of the Tormin mining rights was a watershed moment for the company, and that it underpinned MRC’s strategy of mineral sands development in Southern Africa. “We also envisaged further news on the mining rights application of MRC’s other South African mineral sands project, Xolobeni, in the next few months,” the company said in a statement to shareholders.

The Tormin project is a beach deposit on South Africa’s West Coast, about 400 km from Cape Town, and about 50 km south of the Anglo American Namakwa Sands project, at Band se Baai. The project is also in close proximity to Anglo’s mineral separation plant at Koekenkaap, from where Tormin’s planned mineral concentrate output could be transported by existing inland rail about 200 km to the export port at Saldhana Bay.

MRC stated that the Tormin project could produce some 49 000 t/y of high-quality enriched nonmagnetic concentrate containing predominantly zircon and rutile.

The Australian parent company, through another South African subsidiary, Transworld Energy & Minerals, was awaiting feedback from the DME regarding its mining rights application for the somewhat controversial Xolobeni mineral sands project in the Eastern Cape, which was said to contain the world’s tenth-largest concentration of titanium-producing minerals. However, mining in the area along the Wild Coast had come under criticism, and was viewed by some as unsustainable.

The Xolobeni environmental-impact assessment and EMP were submitted to the DME on December 20, 2007, and the company reported that a decision was expected during the June 2008 quarter. Initially, the company indicated that a record of decision was expected from the DME on January 15, 2008.