Photo by: Bloomberg
PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Mineral sands miner Mineral Commodities has shipped its first high-grade zircon rutile from its Tormin operations, in South Africa.
The shipment was sent to offtake partner Wogen Pacific, with some 1 800 t expected to be shipped this month, ramping up to 4 000 t a month by February.
“In recent months, we have progressively and successfully commissioned Tormin and we are now generating all important revenue. We look forward to the ramp-up continuing,” said Mineral Commodities CEO Andrew Lashbrooke.
Commissioning of the beach mining and processing infrastructure started in October last year, and the 1.2-million-tonne-a-year processing plant was operating both to plan and grade reconciliation, which Lashbrooke said provided confidence of the yearly production rate of 48 000 t of zircon/rutile concentrate.
“In addition to zircon/rutile concentrate, the company has to date produced 9 000 t of ilmenite concentrate and 12 000 t of garnet concentrate. The ilmenite remains the subject of ongoing sales offtake discussions and is being stockpiled pending the outcome, while delivery of the garnet concentrate will start in February,” Lashbrooke added.
The proposed Phase 2 operation at Tormin provided for further processing through a dry mineral separation plant to produce various magnetic concentrates, including up to 125 000 t/y of ilmenite and 100 000 t/y of garnet.