Australian mineral sands producer Strandline Resources has confirmed the start of commercial heavy mineral concentrate at the Coburn mineral sands project in Western Australia.

Ore commissioning of wet concentration plant (WCP) at Coburn is ramping up, with saleable HMC product being produced and stockpile inventories building. It is also still tuning WCP sequences and equipment settings, with its first shipment of heavy mineral concentrate set for next month. It will sell several shipments of HMC from the WCP while construction of the MSP is being completed.

In the meantime, material trucking will begin this week to the Port of Geraldton under a contract with Qube Bulk. Both construction verification and pre-commissioning activities of the downstream mineral separation plant are expected to begin in December.

Strandline has now turned its focus to increasing production throughput towards design rates, improving plant availability and optimising product recoveries and specification.

“Ore commissioning is now well underway, as shown by the growing stockpile of product ahead of our first shipment,” Strandline MD Luke Graham said.

“Sales of HMC will generate strong cash flow for Strandline while we complete construction of the MSP, which will in turn drive further increases in cash flow.”

The Coburn property has an initial mine life of more than 22 years at its planned mining rate of 23.4 million tonnes annually on average. The potential exists for that mine life to be extended to approximately 37 years.

Source: strandline.com.au