Kenyan president ticks Kwale

Kenyan president ticks Kwale

Rebecca Keenan, MiningNews.net

October 04, 2004

The president of Kenya has told Canadian mineral sands hopeful Tiomin Resources the approval for its Kwale titanium project from the minister of finance will be "expedited without delay" clearing the way for the project to move to the financing and implementation phase.

Tiomin president and chief executive Jean-Charles Potvin met with President Mwai Kibaki, who reportedly "urged the company to commence operations as soon as possible". President Kibaki said the project was a manifestation of Kenya's desire to attract foreign direct investment.

Construction of the project is expected to begin next year with commercial production forecast for late 2006. Production was originally anticipated in late 2002 but was delayed because of Kwale landowner protests.

A feasibility study completed three years ago put development costs at US$137 million for 14-year project. Annual production during the first six years would total 330,000t of ilmenite, 77,000t of rutile, and 37,000t of zircon. A review of the project completed this year by Ausenco indicated an operating pre tax cash flow of US$35 million for a 13-year mine life with a payback of 3.4 years.

The project has a resource of 254 million tonnes of mineralised sands at an average grade of 3.48% titanium heavy mineral as estimated by SRK. The proven and probable reserves of 140.8 million tonnes were calculated from the Central and South Dune areas which are being designed to be mined at an initial annual average rate of 10Mt.

Three other coastal deposits have been outlined with a total resource of over 950Mt of indicated and 1.9 billion tonnes of inferred mineral sands. These deposits are expected to be developed once Kwale is in production