The first shipment of zircon concentrate from the Thunderbird mineral sands project, in Western Australia, has set sail, ASX-listed Sheffield Resources reported on Monday.
With production starting ahead of schedule in the fourth quarter, subsidiary Kimberley Mineral Sands took advantage of its capacity to ship bagged production through Port Hedland, starting shipments to its three existing offtake customers.
About 300 t of bagged concentrate were shipped over the weekend.
Revenue will be received in January.
The two-stage Thunderbird development pathway sees the initial Stage 1 mining and processing feed rate forecast at 1 085 t/h at the wet concentrate plant (WCP), with Stage 2 doubling the WCP feed rate to 2 170 t/h targeted during Year 5 of operations.
Stage 1 and 2 of operations are estimated to produce 1.4-million tonnes a year of zircon and ilmenite concentrates over an estimated 36-year life-of-mine.