PERTH (miningweekly.com) – ASX-listed Sheffield Resources has struck a A$12-million deal with fellow-listed Image Resources to divest of its McCalls mineral sands project, in Western Australia.

McCalls contains mineral resources estimated at 5.8-billion tonnes at 1.4% total heavy minerals (THM) for 84-million tonnes contained THM, and 75-million tonnes of contained valuable heavy minerals.

Sheffield executive chairperson Bruce Griffin said that the company was very pleased to have realised meaningful value for the noncore McCalls project.

“Combined with the sale of the Eneabba project in late 2021, Sheffield has realised A$36-million from the sale of non-core assets ensuring we have a strong balance sheet as we finalise the financing and proceed into the execution phase for Thunderbird.

“This transaction is consistent with Sheffield’s strategy of focusing on our core Thunderbird asset. It is particularly pleasing to be able to divest the McCalls project to Image, following our sale of Eneabba to Image in late 2021, given the strong alignment of these assets to their growth strategy.”

Image MD and CEO Patrick Mutz said on Monday that the company was excited to add the mineral sands deposit to its portfolio of opportunities, particularly as McCalls was in the company’s backyard at Boonanarring.

“While the overall grade is low, this can be managed with an appropriate economy-of-scale coupled with lower cost mining and processing methods. Importantly, while a number of other massive mineral sands deposits are challenged with finer grain minerals, lower grade titanium dioxide (TiO₂) minerals, and higher uranium and thorium, McCalls contains medium grain minerals, has high-quality TiO₂ and low uranium and thorium,” said Mutz.

“Image will now have the luxury of focusing on identifying potentially one or two 500-million-tonne subsets within the 5.8-billion-tonne mineral resources, at higher heavy mineral grade and lowest strip ratio to move to feasibility study. This can be done while we continue operating on our other smaller, but higher-grade projects. Additional advantages with the acquisition of McCalls include the opportunity to evaluate the potential for full mineral separation and the possibility of establishing a new synthetic rutile production facility using cutting-edge robotic technology and green hydrogen.”