Mineral sands producer Image Resources has posted a productive quarter with higher ore tonnes processed than forecast at its flagship wholly owned, high-grade, zircon-rich Boonanarring mineral sands project, located 80km north of Perth in the North Perth Basin in WA.
Lower ore grades were partially offset by the higher production and heavy mineral concentrate sales were in line with forecast, with a 7 per cent higher than average realised price per tonne due to higher zircon content and a more favourable exchange rate.
Despite rising fuel costs, labour shortages and general inflation Image benefited from decreased operating cash costs and lower shipping costs in the last quarter of 2022. Operating costs remained relatively constant. Additionally, the finalisation of an additional land access agreement will facilitate the extension of mining and concentrate production at Boonanarring into the second half of this year.
In addition to efforts aimed at extending mining at Boonanarring, management has maintained focus on project development efforts for the nearby Atlas project, only 80km north of Boonanarring, within Image’s sizeable tenement package in the North Perth Basin.
The company flagged an updated ore reserve at Atlas of 5.5Mt at 9.4 per cent total heavy minerals, with average grades of 11.9 per cent zircon, 7.9 per cent rutile, 4.9 per cent leucoxene and 53 per cent ilmenite in total heavy minerals. Image expects the Atlas development to be funded from internal cash reserves and subject to relevant approvals, mining is scheduled to commence later in 2023 and will be followed by heavy mineral concentrate production in the last quarter of this year.
Significantly, Image has fully committed heavy mineral concentrate sales at market-based pricing. The Atlas reserve has a 2.5-year lifespan and is forecast to generate strong cashflow out of the high-value pit centre in its first year of production.
Image is additionally advancing a preliminary feasibility study for the 10-year Bidaminna project near Regan’s Ford, 80km north of Perth and 30km inland from Lancelin and is planning future developments of additional projects resulting from the recent strategic acquisitions of the Eneabba tenements and McCalls project. In particular, a preliminary assessment of Yandanooka and Durack projects within the Eneabba tenements and the McCalls project are underway.
Image has calculated the Eneabba tenements will provide the opportunity for 10–20 years of dry mining of very shallow mineralisation, using the same recovery techniques as used at Boonanarring.
The McCalls project however has the potential upwards of 50 years dry or hydraulic mining with thick and broad seams of shallow mineralisation containing high-quality ilmenite.
The acquisition of the Eneabba tenements and McCalls project has substantially increased Image’s mineral sands portfolio and has boosted the Company’s total mineral resources 16-fold to more than a whopping 1.8 billion tonnes in the measured and indicated categories.
In the innovation space, Image successfully partnered with Mineral Technologies in a cost-sharing arrangement for the construction and operation of a demonstration-scale wet concentration plant located at Boonanarring. The plant was designed to confirm that MT’s innovative, smaller diameter heavy mineral separation spiral technology, could perform as well or better than industry standard spiral technology currently used at Boonanarring.
Construction, commissioning and testing of the new plant was recently completed. Overall, the test results successfully demonstrated the new spiral technology was very competitive in metallurgical performance, with the added paybacks of a substantially smaller wet concentration plant footprint. The new plant could operate at much higher solids content in the feed slurry than standard spiral technology, another useful benefit. Image has subsequently committed to utilising this new CT1 technology on a commercial scale at Atlas, in combination with standard spiral technology.
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By Matt Birney
