South Africa's Richards Bay Minerals to Expand Minerals Operations on Increased Demand

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Rising world prices and strong and growing demand from China are driving Richards Bay Minerals (RBM) (Richards Bay, South Africa) to extend operations, which were originally planned to stop in 2030, to 2043. The RBM facility is on South Africa's Indian Ocean east coast and produces titanium minerals, high purity pig iron, rutile and zircon.

RBM's stakeholders are Rio Tinto plc (NYSE:RIO) (London, England) (37%), BHP Billiton (NYSE:BHP) (Melbourne, Australia) (37%), the local Blue Horizon black empowerment group (24%) and RBM employees (2%).

The company will re-treat 16 million tons of tailings that have accumulated for 16 years. The company has invested $175 million in a new 300-ton-per-hour treatment plant that will go into operation soon. The plant will treat 2.2 million tons per year of tailings, of which 1.5 million tons per year will be reclaimed from the stockpiles. The zircon, rutile and ilmenite produced by the new treatment plant will beat the company's currently lowest cost production levels. RBM currently processes 200,000 tons per day of heavy mineral sand from coastal dunes, producing 8,000 tons per day of concentrate.

Forward production for all four products is sold out for the next three years. Zircon, which was selling at $800 per ton in 2010, is now selling at $1,200 per ton (with occasional peaks of $1,500 per ton). Sales to China, which were nonexistent three years ago, shot up to 170,000 tons in 2010. RBM exports up to 99% of its product and has a turnover of about $1 billion.

Mining could start in 2016 at the Zulti South area, after decisions following a prefeasibility study that is currently under way. The new operations would outlast the existing Zulti North operations, which will close around 2030. Grades in the new area are expected to be similar to those at Zulti North. A captive cogeneration power project is being studied to feed the smelter, and this operation could continue with imported stock after the Richards Bay operation runs out of resource after 2040. The power plant would use carbon monoxide from the smelter furnace to fire gas turbines.

The mining process involves excavator/dredgers churning the dunes into slurry ponds where concentrators suck up the slurry and separate the mineral-bearing sand from the lighter sand and transport the former to the smelter. RBM has a continuous dune-rehabilitation process in place that produces 55 hectares of crops made available to the local community every year. The company is studying ways to plant more indigenous trees and crops to improve the local income.

The smelter produces 3,000 tons per day of titanium dioxide and 1,500 tons of pig iron from 5,000 tons per day of ilmenite and anthracite feed. The paint and pigment industry uses more than1 million tons of titanium dioxide slag per annum. Rutile is used as a flux in the manufacture of welding rods and in the production of high-tech-application titanium metal. Components for nuclear waste storage and automotive castings use the high-purity pig iron, while zircon is used to gloss ceramic tiles.

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