WA mineral sands company Image Resources has refined its Atlas deposit in resource to 17.3 million tonnes at 5.7 per cent heavy minerals.
The update represents an 800,000t resource reduction for project near the Wheatbelt town of Cervantes and a slight increase in mineral percentage.
Rates of valuable zircon, rutile and leucoxene have lifted since the 2017 mineral resource estimate with zircon recording the largest increase from 9.3 to 9.8 per cent of heavy minerals present.
Rutile now runs at 6.5 per cent, leucoxene 5.1 per cent and ilmenite at 49 per cent.
All up some 980,000t of heavy minerals are contained in the 17.3Mt resource, 70 per cent of which is measured and indicated.
The updated resource comes on the back of 212 drill holes sunk since 2017 to shore up Atlas’ mineral assemblage.
Some 1885 holes running 23,708m are now included in the data and 15,430 samples have been assayed.
The Atlas project has long been in the project pipeline having grown from a 10.8Mt at 7.78 per cent resource in 2011 into today’s resource.
It is seen as the natural replacement mine for Image once the company’s Boonanarring deposit 90km south runs out as existing plant equipment can be relocated to the new site.
Image Resources’ tenements occupy a similar area to Tronox’s Cooljarloo mine which is churning out more than 770,000t of heavy mineral concentrate a year for the company’s Chandala processing plant in Muchea.
Ilmenite, the most prolific mineral found in the Atlas resource, is mainly used in blast furnace feeds and for sand-blasting.
Zircon has applications in the foundry industry as an abrasive and furnace liner but can also be found in myriad products from ball-point pens to spacecraft.
Rutile and leucoxene can be used as colouring agents in paint, paper and plastic among other minor uses.
It has been a busy year for Image which in March tabled a total mineral resource for its acquisitions in the Eneabba mineral sands district of 199Mt grading 2.8 per cent total heavy minerals.
With those projects in the works and Atlas shaping up to replace the flagship Boonanarring deposit Image is laying a long path ahead for its mineral sands ambitions.
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