The Moma deposit has one of the largest resource bases of the African mineral sands sector although it has a relatively mid range ore grade of 3.1% HM (on its combined reserve and resource inventory). Ilmenite is the primary ore mineral, but the deposit also has good zircon grades although rutile contents are relatively low.

The deposit itself consists of a number o discrete near-coastal dunes of which the Namalope deposit is the key mining area currently.

The dredges cut into the ore at the base of the pond, causing the mineralised sand to slump into the mining pond where they are pumped to a WCP. The dredges are supplemented by dry mining using standard surface mining equipment which is then slurried and pumped to a WCP for processing.

The first processing stage at the WCP consists of rejecting oversize material before feeds are passed over progressive stages of gravity spirals which separate the Heavy Mineral Concentrate (“HMC”) from silica sand and clay tailings.

Tailings consist of a coarse fraction (silica sand) that settles immediately and a fine fraction (clay) that settles less quickly. Both fractions are co-deposited into a series of settling ponds. Thickened fine tails are pumped from these settling ponds to drying paddocks located in the rehabilitation zone where the dried material helps the subsoil retain moisture and nutrients to aid re-vegetation.

HMC consists of the valuable heavy minerals ilmenite, rutile and zircon, some non-valuable heavy minerals, and a small amount of light minerals, the bulk of which is silica. HMC, representing approximately 5% by weight of the total sand mined, is pumped to the Mineral Separation Plant (“MSP”) where it is stockpiled prior to further processing.

HMC is transferred from stockpiles by front-end loaders and fed to the WHIMS (“Wet High Intensity Magnetic Separation”) plant to separate magnetic from non-magnetic fractions.

The MSP uses a series of magnetic, electrostatic and gravity separation circuits to separate valuable minerals and also to separate ilmenite, rutile and zircon product grades to meet specific customer requirements. The magnetic stream is dried and processed by electrostatic separation in either of two ilmenite plants to produce final ilmenite products. The non-magnetic fraction of the WHIMS output passes to the wet gravity separation circuit to remove silica and trash minerals. Electrostatic separators are then used to separate the conducting mineral rutile from the non-conducting mineral zircon.