Summary

Mine Type	Surface
Study Completed	Preliminary Economic Assessment
Stage	Permitting
Commodities	Heavy Minerals Ilmenite Zircon Garnet Rutile
Mining Method	Dredging
Mine Life	...
Snapshot	The Mannar Heavy Minerals Project in northwest Sri Lanka represents one of the country’s most significant ilmenite-based mineral sand deposits. Its geology features extensive, continuous heavy-mineral zones up to 10 km long and 3 km wide, with mineralisation occurring from surface and with minimal overburden, enabling cost-efficient mining. The project is designed as a long-life, economically robust operation anchored by high-quality ilmenite, supported by rutile, zircon, and garnet by-products. Processing will be based on a floating Wet Concentrator Plant feeding a central Mineral Separation Plant utilising gravity, electrostatic, and magnetic separation to maximise recoveries. The project is advancing through permitting, with Industrial Mining Licence applications lodged and Environmental Impact Assessment studies nearing completion.

Deposit type

• Sedimentary

Summary:

Mannar Island is a Holocene sand island. Mannar Island has formed as a sand island prograding westward across Palk Straight over a Pleistocene/Holocene unconformity surface of Pleistocene to Miocene limestones and terrestrial clays to form a sequence of nearshore sands, beach, and dune sands 12 to 14m thick. Accumulation of Holocene sediment into the accreting axis of Mannar Island has been driven by alternating monsoon driven longshore and nearshore transport.

Multiple phases of coastal reworking and re-deposition of the older coastal deposits has tended to concentrate the heavy minerals. As the sands were transported and re-deposited lighter sediment grains were winnowed out and heavy minerals concentrated. Winnowing and concentration occurred in the shallow nearshore, along the beach and by wind deflation along the back beach areas. The balance between sediment supply and heavy mineral concentration across the shoreface from the nearshore, the beach and back beach areas tended to form extensive zones of heavy mineral concentration rather than just narrow shoreline strands. Consequently continuous zones of heavy mineral concentration up to 3km wide , 10km long and 10 to 12m thick have been formed. This exceptional continuity of heavy mineral concentration means no significant zones of barren material within the interpreted resource block model. In addition there is essentially no barren sand overburden on the heavy mineral sand resources.

There is general consensus that the heavy minerals in Sri Lanka were derived from Precambrian (Proterozoic) high-grade metamorphic rocks that account for more than ninety percent of the island. These crystalline basement units are subdivided into 3 major litho-tectonic subdivisions, namely the Highland, Wanni and Vijayan Complexes.

The heavy minerals ilmenite, rutile, zircon, sillimanite and garnet commonly occur in the coastal sands.

Mineralization is high in the tidal, beach and berm areas, with significant inland mineralization proven on Mannar Island.

Dimensions
The updated Mineral Resource in Area 2 was divided into 2 Domains. The extents of the mineralization were within Domain 2: 9,500m x 1,400m x 2m, and within Domain 8: 7,700m x 1,400m x 9m.

Mining Methods

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Comminution

Crushers and Mills

Processing

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Commodity Production

Operational metrics

Metrics
Annual ore mining rate	....
Ore tonnes mined, LOM	....

Personnel

Job Title	Name	Ref. Date
.......................	.......................	Jan 21, 2026