The Australian gold and tantalum producer Sons of Gwalia Ltd (SoG) is considering its options for making a major growth step in its titanium-minerals business. The company has been "invited to participate" in the forth-coming sale by Nissho Iwai Corp. of Japan of the latter's wholly-owned RZM Cable Sands. RZM is an established producer of titanium minerals, via the Cable Sands mining and processing facilities at Bunbury in Western Australia. Cable Sands' capacity has been around 465,000 t/y of heavy-minerals concentrate in recent years. The company is planning to develop an operation producing 250,000 t/y mineral-sands concentrates at Jan-gardup South during 2003, at a cost of 40 million Australia dollars, partly to replace deposits that have been exhausted. Meanwhile, SoG has gained an option to increase its interest in the BIP joint venture, which operates the Pooncarie project, from 25 percent to 50 percent. Pooncarie lies in the emerging Murray Basin mineral-sands province, which straddles the state borders of Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia. PIP has total resources of 32 Mt combined heavy minerals, and includes the important Ginkgo and Snapper deposits. The executive chairman of SoG, Peter Lalor, said that the two potential deals give the company "the opportunity to create a large and new Australian-based mineral-sands producer".
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