SYDNEY (miningweekly.com) – Junior explorer Latin Resources was on the hunt for a joint venture (JV) partner to assist in developing its Guadalupito iron and mineral sands project, in western Peru.

Addressing the first day of the Paydirt Latin America Down Under conference in Sydney, today, Latin Resources MD Chris Gale said the resource had now been developed to the stage where a mining start in 2015 was a realistic target.

Guadalupito has a Joint Ore Reserves Committee-compliant inferred mineral sands resource of some 1.4-billion tons, averaging 5.7% heavy minerals. The project also has a conceptual exploration target of four-billion tons of mineralised sediments.

The deposit’s gold grades have also been identified as of potential economic significance.

“This is a big year for us and we have set a number of goals for the next 12 months,” Gale said.

“Heading that priority is to now find a JV partner to help develop the deposit as it is favoured by a port just 25 km away as well as local water, power and steel smelter infrastructure.”

Gale noted that, importantly, the Guadalupito project had a discete suite of liberated mineral grains of recoverable size of zircon, rutile, ilmenite, titanium and andalusite, which enhanced the project’s investment appeal.

“The scoping study has shown favourable support for a dredge mining operation for production of a heavy mineral concentrate. The resource upgrade to 1.4-billion tons in the most recent quarter was a 370% increase and positions Latin Resources to become one of the worlds’ biggest mineral sands producers,” Gale said.

“There is also still huge exploration upside at Guadalupito, as we have explored barely a tenth of the area.”

He added that Latin Resources was now starting its mine planning and permitting process, in the hopes of being in production by 2015, depending on JV discussion outcomes.

“This maiden output will occur at a time forecasters expect average annual growth in demand across the titanium and zircon markets of at least 4% until at least 2020.”