This article is a sponsored feature from Mining.com.au partner McLaren Minerals. It is not financial advice. Talk to a registered financial expert before making investment decisions.
Western Australia has long been a global leader in mining, boasting rich deposits of critical minerals essential to modern industry.
Among these, titanium — extracted from mineral sands — has gained increasing attention due to its critical applications in aerospace, medical technology, and pigment production.
With demand on the rise, McLaren Minerals (ASX:MML) is leveraging its recently acquired sulphate ilmenite project to capitalise on Western Australia’s mineral wealth.
Formerly known as Allup Silica, the company underwent a strategic transformation to align with its new focus, transitioning from silica sands to heavy mineral sands specifically targeting titanium minerals.
Managing Director Simon Finnis explains the decision behind the rebrand: “Obviously Allup Silica just didn’t represent what the company was about anymore. Clearly, the assets they had in the company didn’t deliver what the shareholders wanted. Hence the new project.”
McLaren’s new direction aligns with the growing significance of titanium minerals, particularly ilmenite.
Ilmenite is the main source of titanium dioxide (TiO₂), essential for many industrial applications.
The majority of the products that come out of mineral sands mining contain TiO₂ at varying levels.
Sulphate ilmenite is the lowest grade, averaging 48-51% TiO₂. Chloride ilmenite is next up in grade ranking, averaging up to 60% TiO₂.
Leucoxene, meanwhile, grades as high as 80% and rutile is the highest-grade product at 95% TiO₂.
The importance of titanium
TiO₂ is a vital component in paints, plastics, paper, and even pharmaceuticals due to its superior whiteness and inert properties.
While the term “titanium” often evokes images of aerospace applications, Finnis notes that the majority of TiO₂ is used in pigment production rather than metal manufacturing.
“It’s interesting. It’s a bit of a buzzword, titanium, but people sort of understand that, so we’re going with it,” he tells Mining.com.au.
“But most of the TiO₂ produced in the world goes into making pigment, and pigment is used in paint, paper, plastics, even in the pharmaceutical industry.
“There’s not many substitutes for TiO₂ because of it’s whiteness and opacity.”
Additional demand flows from its importance in making titanium metal, which Finnis says is “just impervious to everything”.
Titanium metal is essential for aerospace, automotive, and medical industries due to its high strength-to-weight ratio and corrosion resistance.
“It is extremely corrosion resistant, you can put salt water on it, you can put it in people as false hips and so on,” Finnis explains. “Because it just will not corrode.”
Because the demand for TiO₂ is growing, so is its price. Sulphate ilmenite, the primary mineral McLaren will be extracting, has seen a significant price jump in recent years.
“When I was in Africa from 2012 to 2015, we were selling our sulphate ilmenite for less than US$100 ($159) a tonne. Now it’s US$350 a tonne,” Finnis notes.
“It’s a step change and it brings these sorts of projects right into play as a decent mid-scale type mineral sands projects and to do it in WA is not a bad place to be.”
Further growth is expected, with Grand View Research forecasting the TiO₂ market will expand at an annual rate of 3.9% through to 2030 to reach US$15.61 billion.
The main drivers of this will be urbanisation and industrialisation – particularly in emerging markets which will lead to greater demand for paints, coatings and industrial materials – coupled with rising demand for lightweight, durable materials in high-performance applications.
At the same time, there is the potential for a supply gap despite increasing production, largely because of declining grades and stockpiles combined with rising demand.
Western Australia: A mineral sands powerhouse
Western Australia’s mineral sands industry has been thriving for over five decades, particularly in coastal areas. However, McLaren’s project is different.
“The mineral sands industry in WA is very mature. Over 50 years. Most of it has been in either the southwest of WA, around Bunbury, or up near Geraldton on the coast,” Finnis says.
“They’re all sand dunes, basically, but historical sand dunes where the mineral sands have over time been worked over by the waves and brought in and deposited.
“The McLaren Project is slightly different. This is part of the Eucla-basin. It was an inland sea. We’re not exactly sure of the deposition or why it’s there. We’ll work that out as we go ahead.”
Eucla is located in the Goldfields-Esperance region of Western Australia along the Eyre Highway.
The 333km2 McLaren Project currently hosts a combined inferred and indicated resource totalling 280 million tonnes @ 4.8% heavy minerals containing ilmenite and lesser amounts of rutile, leucoxene and zircon.
With minimal overburden and simple processing methods, McLaren’s deposit is shaping up to be a viable operation.
The deposit has less than 0.5m of topsoil/subsoil on top of mineralisation ranging in thickness from 15-35m.
The project also offers an advantage in its purity. Unlike other deposits, it does not contain high levels of uranium, thorium and other deleterious elements, making it more cost effective and more attractive to potential buyers.
“The interesting thing about this ore body is it hasn’t got much of those high-value products, but it also doesn’t have any of the really deleterious things that used to be hard to deal with, like uranium and thorium,” Finnis explains.
The transport of uranium and thorium is limited to 500 parts per million, but McLaren’s project has much lower concentrations.
“Our project runs 30 parts per million,” Finnis says. “So extremely low, probably the lowest you’ll see anywhere in the world. It’s very, very clean.”
McLaren’s road to market
Looking ahead, McLaren intends to produce a magnetic concentrate of ilmenite and a non-magnetic concentrate of higher-value minerals such as rutile, leucoxene, and zircon. The company is targeting export markets, particularly in Asia and the Middle East.
The McLaren Project is located 5km south of the Eyre Highway and 350km by road to Esperance Port.
“We’ll export most of this product to Asia, probably China. China buys most of the sulphate ilmenite that’s exported anywhere in the world,” Finnis says.
“But the other key potential customer is smelters in the United Arab Emirates. There’s one in Oman that’s coming online. They basically buy sulphate ilmenite to smelt and their products are iron and chloride slag.”
McLaren’s shift from silica sands to mineral sands was driven by market realities. The silica market, while valuable, is limited in scale and profitability compared to mineral sands.
“Clearly, the previous management team and the focus of the company was the silica sand projects, but it basically ran out of steam,” Finnis explains.
“Silica sand is difficult. It’s a small market. It’s not a high-value market.”
McLaren Minerals is currently focused on advancing its Prefeasibility Study (PFS), a crucial step in securing investor confidence and demonstrating the project’s economic viability.
Finnis acknowledged the need to educate the market about the opportunity at hand.
“Look, I don’t think people really have got it yet. We are still in that program of educating everybody about what this is all about,” he tells this news service.
“We’re hoping, of course, that the change of personnel – the people that have done all this sort of thing before – brings confidence to people. Obviously, when we get to the PFS and we can release numbers, that will be a huge step forward.”
McLaren’s goal is to boost the higher confidence indicated resource from 79 million tonnes currently to 200 million tonnes.
The company is working towards proving up a simple dozer and trap mining operation complete with a 10 million tonne per annum spiral concentration plant to produce up to 400,000 tonnes each year of ilmenite in concentrate.
With a promising deposit, a favourable market, and a strategic plan in place, McLaren Minerals’ transformation signals a new era, and investors will be watching closely.
Write to Angela East at Mining.com.au
Images: Mining.com.au & McLaren Minerals
