Base MD Tim Carstens
PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Mineral sands producer Base Resources was hoping to develop its Toliara sands project, in Madagascar, into a similar size operation as its Kwale mineral sands project, in Kenya.
“It has to be strategically relevant, and it won’t make sense to us if the operation is smaller than Kwale,” Base MD Tim Carstens told Mining Weekly Online on the sidelines of the Africa Downunder conference, in Perth.
Based on the current resource of 857-million tonnes, the Toliara sands project had sufficient resources to support a mine life of around 40 years, with a project scale similar to Kwale, which averages yearly production of 80 000 t of rutile, 360 000 t of ilmenite and 30 000 t of zircon.
A prefeasibility study on Toliara is due in the first quarter of 2019, while a definitive feasibility study is targeted for the end of the third quarter, Carstens said.
Debt financing for the project is expected to be in place by the fourth quarter of next year, allowing Base to make a final investment decision on the project. If a positive investment decision is taken, construction activity at Toliara will start in the fourth quarter of 2019, allowing operations to start at the tail-end of 2021, which Carstens said would coincide with a demand-driven supply shortage in the mineral sands market.