Sheffield Resources doubles Thunderbird Resource

THE DRILL SERGEANT: Sheffield Resources (ASX: SFX) has released an updated mineral resource for the Thunderbird deposit at the company’s Dampier heavy mineral sand (HMS) project in the Canning Basin region of Western Australia.

The total Mineral Resource for Thunderbird now stands at:

2.62 billion tonnes at 6.5 per cent heavy minerals (HM) Measured, Indicated and Inferred, for 170 million tonnes of contained HM.

 

Thunderbird Resource HM percentage block extents projected to surface, highest grade on top. Source: Company announcement

 

The latest calculation is compares favourably to the previous December 2012 maiden mineral resource for the deposit of:

1.37 billion tonnes at 6.1 per cent HM (Indicated & Inferred) at 2 per cent HM cut-off.

The resource includes a coherent high-grade zone (at 7.5 per cent HM cut-off) of 740 million tonnes at 12.1 per cent HM (Measured, Indicated and Inferred) containing 6.8 million tonnes of zircon, 2.1 million tonnes of high-titanium leucoxene, 1.9 million tonnes of leucoxene and 25 million tonnes of ilmenite.

“The Thunderbird deposit is one of the largest accumulations of zircon in the world,” Sheffield Resources managing director Bruce McQuitty said in the company’s announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange.

“The contained zircon of the Total Resource stands at 14.3 million tonnes, more than twice that of the previous 2012 resource estimate.

“The deposit also contains a globally significant quantity of ilmenite.

“The key to the deposit is the extensive high-grade zone, which features exceptionally high in-situ grades of 0.92 per cent zircon and 3.4 per cent ilmenite.

“Zircon and ilmenite are expected to be the most important products by value and volume, respectively.

“Importantly, leading industry consultants TZMI have confirmed that the Thunderbird products will achieve wide acceptance in the broadest market sectors.”

Sheffield is currently running a Scoping Study over Thunderbird, due for completion in the next few weeks, which will focus on scheduling initial production from this high-grade zone during early production years.

The company said the high in-situ valuable heavy mineral (VHM) grades for this zone of 0.92 per cent zircon, 0.29 per cent high-titanium leucoxene, 0.25 per cent leucoxene and 3.4 per cent ilmenite place Thunderbird within the top tier of HMS deposits globally.

“This resource update is an outstanding result for our shareholders and a great achievement by our exploration team who have built a resource inventory of global scale during the last three years.”

“The mineralisation at Thunderbird remains open in all directions.

“Sheffield’s 2014 drilling campaign will target extensions to the deposit.”

Email: info@sheffieldresources.com.au

Website: www.sheffieldresources.com.au