From Tng's website TiO2 leading publication, Industrial...

From Tng's website



TiO2 leading publication, Industrial Minerals, reports on TNG and DKSH offtake

By William Clarke, Market Reporter – Fastmarkets / Industrial Minerals  Published: Tuesday, 30 October 2018
Titanium dioxide junior TNG has signed an offtake deal for its planned Mount Peake project with Swiss trader DKSH, the Australian company announced on Tuesday October 30.
DKSH will handle all distribution, including logistics and marketing, for TNG’s titanium dioxide production, which is an unusual arrangement for a major pigment producer.
DKSH will purchase as much as 100% of TiO2 output over the entire life of the Mount Peake mine in Australia, on an fob basis, for global distribution. It plans to begin marketing the material to potential buyers in 2020, with full production expected in the first half of 2021.

Fastmarkets’ price assessment for TiO2 pigment, high quality, bulk volume, cfr​

Asia, was $2,400-2,800 per tonne on October 25. The price had been $2,8003,100 per tonne from mid-April until June, but came under pressure from the weakening Chinese yuan.
TNG already has binding life-of-mine offtake agreements in place for its vanadium production with South Korean group Woojin, while global trader Gunvor will take its iron production.
TNG plans to produce titanium dioxide at its own facility in Australia’s Northern Territory. This titanium dioxide material will be unusual in that it will not be produced from ilmenite or rutile ore. Instead, the company will process titanomagnetite via a proprietary hydrometallurgical process, removing iron and vanadium from the ore.
General manager Phillippe Guillemaille told Fastmarkets that the process would leave just 2% iron in the feedstock, which TNG is calling TiVan.
As a result, this feedstock can be processed in a manner similar to conventional sulfate-route titanium dioxide production. But Guillemaille said that the product offered whiteness comparable to that achieved with chloride-route titanium dioxide.
Although all TiVan feedstock produced at the site will be processed in-house, and sold via DKSH, Guillemaille noted that the process could be applied to other titanomagnetite resources globally.
This could be significant given the prospect of a shortage of high-grade feedstocks from traditional mineral sand resources, because stocks and mines are depleted.
Fastmarkets’ price assessment for rutile concentrate, min 95% TiO2, bagged, fobAustralia was $1,050-1,300 per tonne on October 25, compared with $770-850 per tonne a year before.