The western coastal plain of South Africa contains a significant resource of detrital heavy minerals by world standards.

The heavy mineral sand deposits occur in a current active beach environment (eg Tormin mine) as well as in older palaeo-beach raised strandlines found inland (inland strandlines) eg Tronox Namakwa Sands.

Apart from the mid-Jurassic, Cretaceous and Tertiary (Paleogene) sediments along the coast, numerous small fossiliferous, marine and terrestrial deposits of Neogene age outcrop along the coastal zone.

The onshore mineral sands are marine palaeo-terraces “Inland Strands”, aeolian sands and fluvial sediments. These targets were formed during Miocene, Pliocene and Quaternary/Pleistocene coastal transgression (sea move inland) and regression cycles.

The lithological units of the Western Strandline can be described as below:

Aeolian sand – non mineralised
Red Aeolin sand – mineralised
Silcrete Duricrust/ dorbank
Orange Feldspathic Sand – non mineralised
Orange Feldspathic Sand – mineralised
Dorbank – mineralised
Strandline – mineralised
Base pebble beds – mineralised
Schist basement

For purposes of estimation, the lithology has been grouped into the following:
Red Aeolian sand
Silcrete Duricrust/dorbank
Orange Feldspathic Sand
Main Strandline Mineralisation (including the thin mineralised dorbank)
Secondary perched str ........

Tormin Mineral Sands Operation consists of a number of high-grade placer beach and strandline mineral sands deposits hosting some of the richest grades in the world of naturally occurring zircon, ilmenite, rutile, magnetite and garnet.

Current Beaches
Operations first commenced at Tormin in late 2013 at the Current Beaches and over a six year period, the Company has mined nearly five times the Indicated Resource of 2.7 million tonnes.

Since commissioning, mining at Tormin has taken place over a 12 kilometre zone of beach area (“Current Beaches”) directly in front of the existing processing infrastructure.

Northern Beaches
In July 2020, Mineral Commodities was granted an amendment to the existing Mining Right under Section 102 of the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act No. 49 of 2008 (“S102 Mining Right”). Under the amended licence, mining operations can expand to include the higher grade Northern Beaches where a high grade JORC compliant resource of 2.5 million tonnes at 23.5% Total Heavy Mineral (“THM”) in the category of Measured, Indicated and Inferred using a 2% cut-off was reported in May 2020.

The Northern Beaches incorporate ten beaches directly north of and adjoining the Current Beaches at Tormin. These areas unite semi-continuous tenements approximately 23.5km in length, covering an area of 398 hectares of beach sands prospective for zircon, rutile, ilmenite, garnet, leucoxene and magnetite. Like the C ........

Ore is processed via a PBC where the minerals are separated by a chemical free gravity process before the garnet is separated at a garnet stripping plant and the non-magnetic material is separated from the heavy mineral concentrate.

The saltwater tailings are pumped back to the beach near the processing plant where the tidal action of the waves on the beaches distributes the tailings in a natural process, effectively reforming the beach profile.