Sheffield announces maiden resource at Yandanooka
THE BOURSE WHISPERER: Bulk minerals explorer Sheffield Resources has announced a maiden Resource estimate for its Yandanooka heavy mineral sand (HMS) project located in the Mid West region of Western Australia.
The estimate has come in at 1.84 million tonnes of contained heavy mineral (71.75 million tonne at 2.6 per cent heavy mineral in Indicated and Inferred categories).
The estimate also includes an Indicated Resource for the high grade core of 1.41Mt of contained heavy mineral (37.5Mt at 3.8% heavy mineral).
“This is a terrific result for our shareholders and a great achievement by Sheffield’s exploration team, just eight months after listing,” Sheffield resources managing director Bruce McQuitty said in the company’s announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange.
“Yandanooka has many attributes which are favourable for mining – the deposit is at surface, close to established infrastructure, and has a high value mineral assemblage.
“We will now investigate its feasibility for near term development.”
According to Sheffield, Yandanooka is one of few remaining outcropping HMS deposits in the Mid West.
The project is situated on cleared freehold land just 2.5 kilometres from an existing sealed highway and railway connecting to Geraldton port, which is approximately 140km to the northwest.
“Yandanooka is just one of several heavy mineral sand projects held by Sheffield in the North Perth Basin,” McQuitty said.
“Our strategy is to carefully evaluate each project with a view to sequential mining with a mobile plant.”
The deposit has a central high-grade core of greater than two per cent heavy mineral, which is enveloped by a lower grade halo of greater than 0.9% heavy mineral.
Sheffield claims the deposit to be 5km long by 1.7km wide, between two metres and 20 metres thick, with minimal overburden and lies above the water table.
The company also said that in addition to elevated zircon and rutile content, the heavy mineral assemblage at Yandanooka comprises a significant proportion of high-titanium dioxide ilmenite and leucoxene.
Previous work, based on analysis of 6 composite samples, carried out by Iluka Resources at Yandanooka ascertained a titanium dioxide content of the ilmenite of 64.7%.
Sheffield considers the high titanium dioxide content of the ilmenite to indicate its potential suitability as feed for chloride process pigment production or synthetic rutile production.
The company will conduct further mineral separation studies to gain information on the ilmenite quality.