JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Mineral sands developer Sheffield Resources has been granted preferred proponent status for a bulk commodity handling area at the Derby wharf, in Western Australia, which is seen as an important step towards securing export capacity for the company’s Thunderbird project.
MD Bruce McQuitty said on Monday that infrastructure studies had indicated that the Derby wharf was well suited for the quantities of product that Sheffield would export.
Based on an April 2014 scoping study, Sheffield is seeking to export about 650 000 t/y of mineral sands product from Thunderbird over a 32-year mine life.
The Derby wharf has previously been used to export base metal concentrates from Western Metals’ Lennard Shelf operations. A conveyor system was used to transport product to the wharf for loading onto barges. Each barge carried 5 000 t of product about 20 nautical miles north of Derby for sea transfer onto larger vessels. Up to 500 000 t/y was exported in this manner. Sheffield said would use a similar system for the loading and shipment of its mineral sands products.
Sheffield would have an exclusive six-month period to negotiate lease area and terms of lease.
Should Thunderbird be developed, Derby could become the third Western Australian port to export mineral sands products after Bunbury and Geraldton.