| Tiwi Islands |
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The Tiwi Islands are located approximately 50kms north of Darwin, a 25 minute air flight and consist of Melville and Bathurst Islands. The Tiwi Islands tenements and associated processing plant and mine camp were purchased off Matilda Minerals in 2009
The tenements purchased had a large number of identified deposits. Matilda Zircon assessed the deposits and decided to initially mine the Lethbridge West and South deposits at Lethbridge Bay. The mineral sand from the Tiwi deposits is high in zircon and rutile. Typically the concentrate produced has a zircon content of 40% -50% and rutile at 20% to 30%. The value of the concentrate in late 2010 was USD$600 and with the increases in world prices for zircon and rutile in 2011 the concentrate value has increased to over $1000 per tonne.
Wet concentration plant at Lethbridge West 2010
Mine camp at Lethbridge West 2010 In 2010 Matilda Zircon mined the Lethbridge West deposit on Melville Island. This was a small deposit and produced 11,400 tonnes of concentrate from 134,500 tonnes of ore mined. Of the production 10,500 damp tonnes of concentrate was shipped to Tricoastal International at Haikou on Hainan Island in China.
The bulk carrier Eemsgracht being loaded from Lethbridge Bay by Barge 2010 The Lethbridge West deposit was mined out in 2010 and has been restored to its original land form. The topsoil has been replaced and cleared vegetation placed back on the minesite. The 2010/2011 wet season has seen considerable regrowth of native vegetation on the mined area.
Regrowth of native vegetation on the Lethbridge West minesite March 2011- 5 months after completion of mining Four kilometres south east of the Lethbridge West deposit is the Lethbridge South deposit. This is four times the size of Lethbridge West but is only half the grade at 2.5% heavy mineral. Matilda Zircon has constructed a Pre-concentrating circuit to attach to the current concentrator to increase its feed capacity from 150tph to 300tph of sand ore.
Lethbridge West and South Deposits Mining of the Lethbridge South Deposit is planned to commence in late 2011. The 760,000 The 1100,000 tonnes of ore will be mined out by June 2012and the 27520 tonnes of concentrate plus the remaining Lethbridge West concentrate shipped to Haikou.
Following drilling carried out in the first half of 2011 Matilda Zircon have identified a large Inferred Resource at Kilimiraka in the southwest of Bathurst Island on the Tiwi Islands.
The resource is in four large dunal systems behind the current beach.
The resource contains 56.2 million tonnes with an average heavy mineral content of 1.6%.
 Four Dunal systems at Kilimiraka highlighted in colour
This is a large resource which will potentially underpin a significantly larger development than the Company’s Lethbridge West and South operations.
The Lethbridge mines combined will produce approximately 40,000 tonnes of heavy mineral concentrate which is less than 5% of the heavy mineral contained in the Kilimiraka Resource. The Kilimiraka resource has the potential to underpin an 8-10 year mining operation assuming mining rates of approximately 700 tonnes per hour. The dunal nature of the deposit makes it very suitable for low cost dozer trap mining. Matilda has commenced environmental studies at Kilimiraka to gain approvals for mining.  View of the Kilimiraka Dunes |
