Keysbrook

The Keysbrook deposit is located approximately 70 kilometres south of Perth in Western Australia.

The deposit has an unusual heavy mineral suite which has leucoxene as its major constituent. When expressed in terms of the mineral products produced, it is as follows:

This mineral suite is higher value than other Southwest WA mineral suites due to the elevated level of high value leucoxene and zircon. Typical southwest WA mineral suites are dominated by lower value ilmenite.

Keysbrook Resource

Part of the Keysbrook Deposit

The Keysbrook deposit is situated on land that is predominantly used for dairy and beef cattle faming. There are pockets of degraded remnant native bush on the deposit. During mining some of the bush will be cleared. Matilda has committed to returning 1.4 hectares of native bush for every 1 hectare of bush removed for mining. The deposit is a dunal surface deposit with no overburden. It is at most five metres deep but averages only two metres deep. The mineralisation is in clean yellow sand similar to building sand with low clay and virtually no rock.

In October 2009 the Keysbrook project was approved by the Western Australian Minister for the Environment. Matilda is now seeking Development Approvals for the project. The applications for Development Approval are being heard in the State Administrative Tribunal in August 2011. Matilda expects to be granted the Development Approvals and will then move to seek funding and start construction of the Keysbrook mine in 2012. Production from the mine would be expected to commence in early 2013.

Trenching at Keysbrook Deposit to check the nature of the deposit

Prior to mining at Keysbrook topsoil will be removed and stockpiled.

Mining will then be carried out by a digger and trucks. The mined material will be trucked to a screening plant where oversize rock and clay will be removed prior to being pumped into a wet concentrator where the heavy mineral sand will be removed by gravity spiral concentrators from the silica sand. The silica sand, oversize and clay will be returned directly back into the mine void and the heavy mineral concentrate stockpiled.

After returning the silica sand, clay and rock to the mine void topsoil will be replaced and either farm pasture or native bush established on the mined area. Pasture will take two growing seasons to re-establish prior to allowing grazing by animals. Native bush will be protected by fences from stock and will take several years to establish.

The process of clearing, mining and rehabilitation will occur progressively during the eight year life of the mine minimising the open area of mining at any one time. After mining has finished at Keysbrook the land will be replaced to near the same level and condition as pre-mining. There will be no mine pits or material stockpiles left as is often the case in other forms of mining such as gold or iron ore mining.

A rehabilitated mineral sands minesite in Southwest WA

The heavy mineral concentrate will be trucked from the mine to Bunbury where it will be dry processed before the constituent zircon and titanium minerals are shipped to customers in the USA and China.

About six trucks will travel to and from the mine site each day.

The mining at Keysbrook is a well established straightforward process which has been carried out in the Southwest and Midwest of Western Australia for over 50 years. The mineral sands record of rehabilitation has been excellent and is a leader in the mining industry.

No chemicals are used in the mining and wet concentration process apart from flocculants to remove clay from water to allow the water to be recycled in the operations. This flocculent is non toxic and is often used in water treatment plants.

The environmental approval issued by the WA Minister for the Environment puts strict conditions on the mining operation especially in the areas of rehabilitation, noise and dust. Matilda must pay multi million dollar bonds to the WA Government to be held in trust to ensure Matilda carries out its mining and rehabilitation in a proper manner.