The Namakwa ore reserves are contained within and non-reserves material, covers an ellipsoidal area of mineralization 15 kilometers in a northeasterly direction with a maximum width of about 4 km, with no overburden. The NE-SW dimension is interpreted to reflect prevailing winds at the time of the deposit’s formation. A narrow sub-economic corridor divides the reserves into two proximal ore bodies, Graauwduinen West and Graauwduinen East, which are more commonly called the “West” and “East” deposits. Nearly two-thirds of historic ore production has been extracted from the West mine pit, to a maximum depth of about 45 meters. In the medium term, 60-65% of extracted ore will be mined from the West pit, but the long-term LOM Plan calls for a nearly even split between West and East mines.

The very large Namakwa HM deposit is broadly the result of prolonged, repetitive weathering-erosion-deposition cycles that were initiated with the breakup of the Gondwana Supercontinent approximately 100 million years ago. The separation of the African and South American proto-continents triggered weathering and erosion of massive volumes of sediment from high-grade metamorphic crystalline “basement” rocks of the one billion-year-old Namaqua-Natal orogenic belt. The sandy sedimentary sequence that hosts our Namakwa HM deposit is interpreted as being derived mostly from the Namaqua-Natal metamorphic belt which was welded onto the western and southern margins of the 2.6+ billion-year-old Kaapvaal Craton. High grade metamorphism facilitates the partitioning of titanium into ilmenite and rutile crystals making them available for erosion, transport and deposition to form economic deposits. Heavy mineral concentrations in beach placers, marine terraces and in coastal dunes were reworked by water and wind into what is now our Namakwa heavy mineral deposit, the end-product of 100 million years of geologic evolution.

The Graauwduinen West orebody
The Graauwduinen West orebody comprises a barren paleodune complex that is overlain by series of elevated sandline deposits, which in turn have been largely reworked into a dune sequence superimposed with duricrust. Free-flowing cover sands terminate this stratigraphy.

In a northerly direction Strandline East is about 5.5 km long, up to 1 km wide, and 5 m thick on average. Eastward is pinches out around 50 m amsl. Northward and Other Sand underlie Strandline East, but to the south downward to 20 m amsl, it covers bedrock directly.

The basalt unit of the Orange Feldspathic Sands comprises a 1m to 2m thick, fairly developed duricrust horizon. Thin, localized mud pans and sandy colluvial lithologies are often interfingered. The following lithology consists of an unconsolidated, distinctly dark-yellow, moderately sorted, medium-grained sand.

The Graauwduinen East orebody
The Graauwduinen East orebody represents surficial aeolian sands, overlying a clayeous dune sequence, cast on top of barren sands.

The bulk of the ore in the Graauwduinen East orebody is represented by the above-lying Orange Feldspathic Sands Mineralized is cast as laterally continuous, single layer duricrust horizon, called Hardpan that can reach up to 5 m in thickness.

Mining takes place in two distinct areas known as the East and West mines. The East Mine comprises predominantly shallow mineral sands stripping. The West Mine entails shallow stripping of the mineral sands followed by a dipper mining operation recovering hardened materials to a depth of about 40m. The shallow mining is done with front-end loaders onto a conveyor system (East mine) or dump trucks (West mine). The deeper mining is done with hydraulic excavators loading rigid dump tracks that convey the material to a central tipping area.

East Mining
The present mining method entails front-end loaders loading and carrying aeolian sand to moveable grizzly feeders. These feeders discharge onto shiftable branch conveyors that feed onto a semi-permanent trunk conveyor or directly onto the dual carry conveyor (DCC). The trunk conveyor system feeds onto the DCC, which in turn feeds the ore via a stockpile feed conveyor onto the PCP East ROM stockpile. The free-standing grizzly feeders are moved by a truck dozer along the branch conveyors to maintain a maximum haul distance of 100m.

West Mining
The West Primary Concentration Plant (PCP West) receives ore from mining of four pits operating within the West Mining. Mining consists of loading ore into haul trucks that discharge into the ROM tipping bin.

The mining sequences start with strip-dozing the topsoil from the surface Red Aeolian Sands (RAS), which is stacked for rehabilitation at the later stages. The remainder of the RAS is mined with front-end loader and truck combination.

For the deeper ore, mining is accomplished by conventional strip mining, utilizing 300-ton excavators, front-end loaders, dozers, and 100-ton and 40-ton dump trucks. Multiple benches with the height up to 5m, are excavated. It has been established that the double bench mining method increases production and reduces unit cost through less hard padding preparation.

Tronox Namakwa Sands undertakes the mining and beneficiation of heavy minerals. Facilities are based at three geographically separated sites situated at:
• Brand-se-Baai: East Mine, West Mine, Primary Concentration Plants (PCP) East and West and the Secondary Concentration Plant (SCP);
• Koekenaap: Mineral Separation Plant (MSP); and
• Saldanha Bay: Smelter facility and Receiving and Dispatch area.
Heavy mineral sands are extracted and concentrated into magnetic and non-magnetic concentrate at the Mine. These magnetic and non-magnetic concentrate streams are transported to the MSP where the magnetic material is treated in the magnetic (ilmenite separation) Dry Mill Circuit to produce ilmenite and the non-magnetic material is treated in the Non-Magnetic Circuit to produce zircon and rutile related products. The ilmenite, zircon and rutile related products are transported to the Smelter, where the ilmenite is further processed, while the zircon and rutile related prod ........