As the Sheffield Resources' Thunderbird mineral sands project reaches production, several weeks ahead of schedule and under budget, executive chair Bruce Griffin talked to Mining Journal about the project's journey in the face of scarce funding and inflationary pressure.

Thunderbird, in the Kimberley region of northern Western Australia, is now on track to make its first shipments of concentrates in the first quarter of next year,

Thunderbird is held by Kimberley Mineral Sands, a 50-50 owned joint venture with Yansteel, a privately held steel producer in China.

"I would think that by the end of the year we'll be aiming to have made products and have started positioning product at the port ready for shipment on track for our first quarter of calendar year," Grifin said. The project is fully funded for the ramp-up.

Stage one and two of operations at Thunderbird are estimated to produce 1.4Mtpa of zircon and ilmenite concentrates over an estimated 36-year life-of-mine.

Griffin joined the board of Sheffield in 2020, at a time when the company was struggling to attract investment given the hefty capital expenditure needed to build an on-site ilmenite roaster, in a relatively remote location.

The JV with Yansteel, announced in August 2020, proved to be the key to unlock the project, removing the need for onsite ilmenite roasting, and giving a secure offtake partner, at the same time as delivering capital needed for development.

Zircon weighting

Sheffield is unusual among mineral sands projects, as the value of its basket of minerals is weighted toward zircon, which is more valuable than titanium minerals such as ilmenite and rutile.

Zircon is used as an opacifier in ceramics, particularly tiles and bathroom fittings, meaning demand is closely tied to the construction industry.

Sheffield's zircon concentrate also contains rare earths, in the form of a monazite fraction, which commands a premium in Chinese markets. This leaves the company positioned to benefit from any further growth in rare earth prices, driven by increased demand for magnets in electric vehicles and wind turbines.

But Griffin said the key to getting the project off the ground had been the tie up with Yansteel, which will take the magnetic concentrate, as feedstock for titanium dioxide pigment production. "They were going into pigment and wanted the feedstock," Griffin said.

Yansteel is an established, midsize steel producer, but had been looking to expand into other areas.

"Steel has been post growth in China really since about 2015 … it was hard to get support to continue to invest in steel, either from the market or indeed from the government," Griffin said.

"So they basically went and looked for other industries that they thought could be successful. Titanium dioxide … looked interesting to them."

The Chinese government has been supportive of new titanium dioxide producers, as part of a policy of improving the quality and environmental footprint of the country's pigment production and to supply to domestic manufacturers and the construction sector. This is underpinned by a policy of shifting to chloride pigment production, a cleaner technology.

"Chloride is seen as sort of advanced technology supporting that improved technical profile of Chinese industry," Griffin said.

"So they were looking for sort of someone who could represent about half of their feedstock, and Sheffield Thunderbird actually fit quite well."

Serendipity

"It's like a rom-com, where the two people who don't know that they're perfect for each other actually just happened to meet serendipitously.," Giffin said.

The key was finding an investor with an interest in the product.

"No one asks a gold company CEO where he's going to sell his gold. In a sector like mineral sands, you have to make a project bankable. You actually have to be able to convince people that the project has a place in the marketplace."

"You've got Yansteel, who is a downstream consumer who wants the security of supply and it's going to get that by seeing Thunderbird developed."

"So you both want the project to be successful. They've got money, you've got the project so you end up with complementary skill sets."