Resources Hunt: Huge Iron-Sands Opportunities Identified
July 21st, 2010
In what could be a huge boost for NZ Inc, local offshore ironsands explorer Trans Tasman Resources (TTRL) believes a 10m tonne a year steel mill using local ironsands as feedstock could be established as the world’s largest and most competitive plant of its type, either in Asia or NZ. TTRL keeps a low profile in NZ, but its latest thinking is outlined on the MED’s Crown Minerals website, and includes fresh information not only the scale of the resource it believes NZ could exploit, but also some of the underlying economics of a steel production operation which could be between five and 10 times cheaper to run than globally competitive alternatives operating in the Pilbara region of West Aust.
TTRL has reported discovery of an initial economically recoverable resource of about 1.2bn tonnes of ironsands at 60% iron content, mostly off the south Taranaki-Wanganui area, in relatively shallow waters and with resources spanning between 20m and 140m deep An initial conceptual study shows the potential exists to develop a 10m tonnes a year steel mill to produce slabs and billets for export to Asia and China. TTRL announced in April it was planning an extensive programme after attracting an unspecified capital contribution from a US private equity fund, Denham Capital, which has become a 48% partner in the venture, which TTRL kicked off in late 2007.
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A further 9bn tonnes of recoverable sands, at 60% iron concentration is estimated also to be available, with substantial volumes of vanadium and titanium also available as by-products. Extensive environmental studies will be necessary to establish the sustainability of a potential off shore mining operation, but TTRL says it is confident there would be much lower environmental impacts from offshore mining than onshore, as well as much lower processing costs.
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