While the global mineral sands sector recently faced a significant increase in demand, dwindling global supply, coupled with the ever-increasing demand for zircon and rutile, has made South Africa’s newly established Tormin mineral sands mine an “extremely attractive” world-class resource, says MRC CEO Andrew Lashbrooke.

He adds that the project, owned by Australia-based mineral sands company Mineral Commodities Limited (MRC) and located on South Africa’s West Coast, about 400 km north of Cape Town, puts MRC in a strategic position as a niche supplier to a market in demand.

“The cost of fully processed zircon and rutile from Tormin is almost 25% less than that of our larger competitors. If we are not the lowest-cost producer in the world, we are among the lowest 10% on the cost curve,” he elaborates.

Further, it is projected that, without additional supply from potential new projects that have yet to receive formal approval to proceed – most of which are Australia- based – the global supply/demand balance is likely to tip progressively towards larger deficits of zircon and rutile.

Lashbrooke says the increasing global demand for heavy minerals is being driven by increasing urbanisation which, in turn, necessitates the manufacture of ceramics, which is mostly made from zircon and coatings comprising rutile and ilmenite.

Project Update MRC shipped its first high-grade zircon and rutile from its Tormin operation last month to offtake partner metals and minerals trader Wogen Pacific. The miner expects to start ramping up production to 4 000 t/m by the end of March 2014.

Commissioning of the beach mining and processing infrastructure of Tormin started in October last year. The 1.2-million-ton-a-year processing plant is operating at the projected rate and is expected to operate at a yearly production rate of 48 000 t of zircon/rutile concentrate.

Since commissioning started, Tormin has established a 60 000 t high-grade heavy minerals stockpile, providing a six-week buffer for when commissioning of the secondary concentration started.

While Tormin mine is projected to have a life-of-mine (LoM) of five years, Lashbrooke says, MRC intends to extend it by another five.

Lashbrooke tells Mining Weekly that a feasibility study, which was commissioned by MRC before it started developing Tormin mine in October 2012, and completed in April 2013, outlined the base case of the operations for hydraulic mining and the primary concentration of the deposit through spiral plants on the beach.

The study stipulated that the concentrate should be transferred to a secondary concentration plant, where it is upgraded through the process of spiralling wet magnetic separation and screening, before being bagged for shipment to destination markets.

Further, the mine’s engineering design provides for the extraction of primary beach concentration of 1.2-million tons a year, which produces about 48 000 t of zircon/ rutile concentrate, grading up to 80% zircon and 10% rutile.

Meanwhile, Phase 2 of the Tormin project, which will be completed in December 2014, involves the construction of a dry minerals separation plant for the additional processing of the concentrate.

The implementation of this phase will produce various magnetic concentrates, including up to 125 000 t/y of ilmenite and 100 000 t/y of garnet.

Caring for the Community
MRC is implementing community-based initiatives that will transform the lives of poverty-stricken individuals living in areas around Tormin mine.

Lashbrooke states that the company aims to develop a mine that will not only showcase South Africa’s mineral sands production capabilities but also enhance the lives of nearby community members.

“The Tormin project has the advantage of starting on a clean slate and not being constrained by legacy issues when it comes to employing qualified personnel.

“Before intiating the project, we thoroughly considered broad-based black economic- empowerment policies and related issues. We came up with interventions that would ensure that management representation, employment equity, training and development, as well as our supply chain, were designed in such a way that we would be able to deliver benefits to a broader base of South Africans, as well as to small and medium-sized enterprises, without compromising in terms of cost or quality,” he explains.

Some of MRC’s interventions involved employing historically disadvantaged South Africans (HSDAs) from the area, including 65 local workers, during the building phase of the mine last year and 100 locals, who will be permanently employed for the five-year LoM. The company also expects that another 400 indirect jobs will be created owing to the need for secondary services.

Lashbrooke adds that MRC, through the Tormin project, is committed to advancing South Africa’s employment-equity laws, which will ensure that more than 50% of the project’s management team will comprise HSDAs, particularly women.

He highlights that the project will contribute to the growth of the South African mining sector, as it is expected that it will inject more than R5-billion into the Western Cape economy over the next five years.