I've done a lot of reasearch on both Iluka and tronox and read thier reports, tronox who have just acquired Krystal and are now the biggest titanium producer in the world. Thier mine at cataby has limited high grade resource left at cataby which is probably why they bought some lease from image not that long ago. They also have plans for mining just south of dongarra I've heard which is even further from thier processing plant by a few hundred km so expensive to transport. Iluka have a lease at cataby also but once again this is a few hundred km from thier Geraldton plant. Not a problem if thier Eneabba mine is running as they dry and train the hmc to Geraldton from eneabba but in the near term I can't see eneabba or cataby starting back up for Iluka. Back to tronox- ilmenite and lucoxene is what is needed to make titanium. Rutile and processed synthetic rutile mainly but ilmenite it generally 40-80 % ti02. With China winding down some of thier io plants for which hmc was a by product this is going to lead to a shortage in the not too distant future. I think the tronox mine runs about 3000tph and grade is around 2% so this would be around 60tph hmc not sure of the make up but doesn't leave much capacity to increase production. The obviousness solution would be to make a deal with tronox to supliment thier feed from cataby as image has sold 90% of the zircon which I think was around 30% of the hmc but what to do with the other 50% of ilmenite they mine and a the remainder of the 10% lucoxene and other bits. The tronox processing plant must have more capacity as they used to mine much higher grade and also had a second mining plant operat the same time a few years back. Anyway enough bs from me I could babble on all night but no one will probably read anyway. you get the idea though. Don't quote me on everything stated being very accurate but they are in the ball park. Dyor.
IMA Price at posting:
10.0¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
