Highlights
- Mineral Commodities (ASX:MRC) has reported a swift transition to saleable concentrate production from Inland Strands ore.
- Mineral Sands Resources (Pty) Ltd has produced sufficient heavy mineral concentrate stocks to transition to commercial production.
- The company believes this to be in line with its Heavy Minerals Division's objectives of increasing the production levels at Tormin and boost sales revenues.
ASX-listed global mining and development company Mineral Commodities Limited (ASX:MRC)
and its empowerment partner, Blue Bantry Investments 255 (Pty) Ltd, today shared an upbeat market update relating Mineral Sands Resources (Pty) Ltd (MSR) processing of Inland Strands ore.
MSR is a 50% owned subsidiary of Mineral Commodities.
As per the company release, MSR has produced sufficient heavy mineral concentrate stocks to transition to commercial production of garnet, ilmenite and non-magnetic (zircon and rutile) saleable concentrate products through the Secondary Concentrator Plant (SCP).
Significance of commercial production at Inland Strands
MRC says to return Tormin to historical profitability with an average EBITDA of US$16M of years 2015 - 2021 and boost cash flow generation, commercial production at Inland Strands is a very crucial step.
100% commissioning of the Inland Strands ore plant upgrade will include operations at target throughput rates and historical recoveries through the Primary Concentration Plant (PCP), and attaining commercial production at target throughput rates and historical recoveries through the SCP. At the Secondary Concentrator Plant, there is an initial plant throughput of 75tph, approximately the average feed rate of 96tph recorded in the year 2022. In order to amplify concentrate production from the higher-grade Inland Strands ore, optimisation is in progress.
Post this development, MRC will switch to designing and constructing the third PCP (PCP-3). PCP-3 is aimed at increasing production capacity from 2.7Mtpa to 3.9Mtpa by December quarter 2023. Funding for PCP-3 has been secured through the recent Rights Issue.
PCP-1 is targeted to process Inland Strand material at 1.2Mpta and PCP-2 is targeted to process beach mined material at 1.5Mtpa (total 2.7Mtpa). There will be sustainable beach mining with rotational beach mining between Northern Beaches and Tormin Beaches production on yearly basis.
MRC expects that this will lead to a more sustainable beach mining grades, with each placer beach deposit getting a replenishment time of at least a year out of two years period, complemented by PCP-1 processing Inland Strand ore.
Management commentary
Data source: Company update
MRC’s shares traded 3.3% higher today at AU$0.062 apiece midday on 21 March 2022.