The tonnages present in Thunderbird and Coburn are extremely different, not just high/low. E.g. Thunderbird contains 3230Mt of ore @ 6.9% HM at a cutoff grade of 3%. Whereas the best zone in Coburn's resource (Amy Central) has 599 Mt of ore at 1.4% HM at a cutoff grade of 0.8%.
Yes, Coburn is high in zircon (23% of HM vs Thunderbird's 8.3%), but it is also high in ilmenite (48% of HM vs Thunderbird's 28%). They have similar high-grade titanium feedstock grades, but even with no rutile, their leucoxene comes in at >10Mt (note leucoxene includes TiO2 contents up to 94% according to SFX) where as Coburn's rutile + leucoxene comes in at 1.5 Mt.
In saying this, it is like comparing chalk and cheese in terms of level of progress. Coburn has not had a resource upgrade or study in a long time (using JORC 2004 numbers).
Similarly, you will have difficulty comparing the ilmenite, rutile and zircon grades themselves. The 66% ZrO2 spec for Coburn is from 2010 DFS, and as far as I can see, the last mineralogy announcement was made in 2008. FYI, Thunderbird's zircon spec is 66.3% ZrO+HfO2, but here you will also find greater detail on Fe2O3, TiO2, SiO2, Al2O3, contents, all important specs (if you know where to find Coburn's details I would be keen to see it).
Likewise, we find great detail in Thunderbird's ilmenite specs, but not for Coburn. For Coburn, we see a 61% TiO2. However, you will also note that Thunderbird's 57.9% TiO2 spec is for optimised ilmenite or ilmenite which has been roasted at low temps. This adds cost to production for Thunderbird, but it is quite obvious from the public releases, BFS, etc. that Thunderbird has had a lot of due diligence done on it, and I imagine this is not a detail that would have been forgotten/left out?
None of this is meant as any opinion or 'who is better', simply a list of facts and relevant questions to ask yourself so you can make up your own mind. I have no position in any mineral sand companies.ut
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