Sheffield signs Thunderbird offtake deals

Aspiring mineral sands miner Sheffield Resources has entered into offtake agreements for 20 per cent of zircon produced from its planned $348 million Thunderbird project near Derby.

Sheffield said today it had signed two memorandum of understandings with Indian ceramics company Ruby Ceramics and Spanish ceramics firm CFM Minerals, for a combined total of 20 per cent of zircon produced from the first stage of Thunderbird.

The parties will finalise negotiations and sign binding offtake agreements over the coming months.

“The MoU’s have been signed with zircon consumers with a high standing in the industry, confirming Sheffield’s capability of supplying the global market with very high quality products once in production,” Sheffield managing director Bruce McFadzean said.

“The recent bankable feasibility study confirms that zircon will represent 62 per cent of the estimated project revenues and we look forward to advancing binding offtake agreements with both Ruby and CFM, as cornerstone premium zircon customers of the company.

“In conjunction with these arrangements, we are working with our financial adviser, Azure Capital, to progress the funding for project development.”

Sheffield’s BFS on Thunderbird, released late in March, showed a $348 million cost to bring the project into production.

Sheffield also said today it was in negotiations with other potential offtake customers.

First construction of Thunderbird is expected in the second half of 2017.

Shares in Sheffield were 5.1 per cent lower to 46 cents each at 1pm.