MINERAL COMMODITIES LTD 
By ABN 39 008 478 653
40 Murray Road North
Welshpool WA 6106, Australia
PO Box 235, Welshpool DC WA 6986, Australia
Telephone: 61 8 6253 1100
Facsimile: 61 8 9258 3601
Email: info@mncom.com.au
Web: www.mncom.com.au
24 January 2014
FIRST SHIPMENTS OF ULTRA HIGH-GRADE ZIRCON RUTILE FROM TORMIN, SOUTH AFRICA - FIRST SALES TO OFFTAKE PARTNER WOGEN PACIFIC - PROCESSING REACHES NAME PLATE DESIGN OF 1.2 MTPA - GRADE CONTROL PROVIDES CONFIDENCE FOR 48,000 TPA OF CONCENTRATE - ONGOING OFFTAKE DISCUSSIONS ON PHASE 2 ILMENITE SALES
Mineral Commodities Limited (ASX:MRC) is pleased to report it has joined the ranks of the world's mineral sands producers with the first shipments of ultra-high grade zircon/rutile concentrate from its recently commissioned US$16 Tormin project, 400km northwest of Cape Town in South Africa.
The company has this week loaded its first concentrate for shipment to its offtake partner
Wogen Pacific and anticipates shipping 1800 tonnes this month, before ramping up towards
4000 tonnes a month during February 2014.
As previously reported, commissioning of the beach mining and processing infrastructure commenced in October 2013. The 1.2 Mtpa processing plant is operating to plan and grade reconciliation provides confidence of an annualised production rate of 48,000 tonnes of zircon/rutile concentrate (grading up to 80% zircon and 10% rutile) which at current world prices would generate in the order of US$40-US$50 million per annum.
Since commissioning commenced a 60,000 tonne high grade heavy mineral stockpile has been created providing a six-week buffer for the secondary concentrate plant (SCP).
"Tormin is a unique high grade deposit probably the highest in world. The run-of-mine grades we have seen of 86% Heavy Mineral Concentrate (HMC) are double the resource grade. This has allowed us to bypass the primary beach concentrator and simply run it through spirals and the secondary concentrator plant reducing costs and risk.
"In addition to the zircon / rutile concentrate, the Company has to date produced 9,000 tonnes of Ilmenite concentrate and 12,000 tonnes of Garnet concentrate. The Ilmenite remains the subject of ongoing sales off take discussions and is being stockpiled pending the outcome, while delivery of the Garnet concentrate will commence in February 2014 under the terms of that agreement.
Executive Chairman Mr Mark Caruso comments: "We start 2014 as the world's newest mineral sands producer with one of world's highest grade deposits. We would like to thank our partners and financiers for their support and the many staff who successfully delivered Tormin on time and on budget without a single lost time injury in over 140,000 man hours." FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:
Mr Andrew Lashbrooke
CEO Mineral Commodities Limited alashbrooke@mineralcommodities.com
+27 21 4171700
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First shipments of the Zircon/Rutile Concentrate
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APPENDIX - ABOUT MINERAL COMMODITIES, TORMIN and XOLOBENI TORMIN is located on the west coast of South Africa, approximately 400km north of Cape Town. The predominant minerals of value are Zircon and Rutile which are contained in a high grade beach placer deposit north of the Oliphants River outfall.
A DFS commissioned by MRC demonstrated that Tormin can produce an enriched concentrate containing predominately Zircon and Rutile. The base case derived from the DFS provides for hydraulic mining and primary concentration of the deposit through spiral plants on the beach. Thereafter, the concentrate will be transferred to a secondary concentration plant (SCP) where it will be further upgraded by spirals, wet magnetic separation (LIMS and WHIMS), and screens before being bagged prior to shipment to destination markets. The engineering design provides for primary beach concentration of 1.2 Mtpa producing approximately 48,000 tonnes of zircon/rutile concentrate grading up to 80% zircon and 10% rutile.
Proposed Phase Two provides for further processing through construction of a dry mineral separation plant to produce various magnetic concentrates, including up to 125,000 tpa Ilmenite and 100,000 tpa of Garnet.
The company has also received a number of proposals for the Ilmenite to be produced from Tormin. MRC is in advanced negotiations with two of these parties and therefore hopes to be in a position to finalise an offtake for 100% of the Ilmenite early 2014. The Ilmenite concentrate is currently being stockpiled until an offtake is finalised and the additional plant required to produce this product is acquired and installed.
The Garnet will be sold to Blastrite and concentrate produced to date has also been stockpiled pending commencement of delivery of this product in February 2014 under the terms of that agreement.
The company is therefore confident of its product sales forecast; with most major suppliers indicating that the prices of zircon / rutile appearing to have reached the bottom of the cycle and that prices are expected to stabilise at current levels before increasing slightly during
2014 on the back of enhanced demand.
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MRC has also previously indicated the presence of a small but valuable rare earth, Xenotime, within the Tormin mineral suite. Given the value of Xenotime at approximately $11,000 per tonne, recovery of it has the capacity to add significant value to the Project. Further test work to ascertain whether the Xenotime can be commercially recovered are under way and the Company hopes to be able to make an announcement in this regard in the near future.
The Xolobeni Mineral Sands Project (Xolobeni) is located in the Eastern Cape Province of
South Africa approximately 300km north of East London and 200km south of Durban.
The Xolobeni resource is 346 million tonnes of 5.0% heavy mineral, with 65% of this resource in the Measured category.
Xolobeni is therefore regarded as one of the largest undeveloped mineral sands resources in the world containing in excess of 9,000,000 tonnes of Ilmenite.
TORMI
CAPE TOWN
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Competent Persons
The information in this announcement which relates to Exploration Results, Mineral Resources or Ore Reserves is based on information compiled by Mr Allen Maynard, who is a Member of the Australian Institute of Geosciences ("AIG"), a Corporate Member of the Australasian Institute of Mining & Metallurgy ("AusIMM") and independent consultant to the Company. Mr Maynard is the Director and principal geologist of Al Maynard & Associates Pty Ltd and has over 30 years of exploration and mining experience in a variety of mineral deposit styles. Mr Maynard has sufficient experience which is relevant to the style of mineralisation and type of deposit under consideration and to the activity which he is undertaking to qualify as a Competent Person as defined in the 2004 Edition of the "Australasian Code for reporting of Exploration Results, Exploration Targets, Mineral Resources and Ore Reserves".(JORC Code). ). This information was prepared and first disclosed under the JORC Code 2004. It has not been updated since to comply with the JORC Code 2012 on the basis that the information has not materially changed since it was last reported. Mr Maynard consents to inclusion in the report of the matters based on this information in the form and context in which it appears.
MRC - Resource Statement
PROJECT | Category | Ore Mt | HM% | Ilmenite (% in HM) | Zircon (% in HM) | Rutile (%in HM) | Garnet (%i HM) |
Tormin | Indicated | 2.7 | 49.4% | 21.4% | 6.9% | 1.4% | 51,2% |
Xolobeni | Measured | 224 | 5.7% | 54.5% | |||
Indicated | 104 | 4.1% | 53.7% | ||||
Inferred | 18 | 2.3% | 69.6% | ||||
346.0 | 5.0% | 54.0% | |||||
Total MRC | 348.7 | 5.3% | 51.7% |
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