Aur to fund feasibility at Tiomin’s Kwale project

The relationship between mid-tier copper producer Aur Resources (AUR-T) and junior Tiomin Resources (TIO-T) has been cemented by Aur’s financing of a feasibility study on Tiomin’s Kwale titanium-sands project, about 30 km southwest of Mombasa, Kenya.

In exchange for the US$2-million loan, Aur receives an option to buy PanaCobre, Tiomin’s Panamanian subsidiary, which holds the Cerro Colorado copper deposit in western Panama. The option, which has a life of 26 months, gives Aur the right to buy PanaCobre for US$14 million, including US$10 million that is payable when commercial production starts at Cerro Colorado.

Kwale, the most advanced of five mineral-sands projects Tiomin holds along Kenya’s Indian Ocean frontage, has a resource of 200 million tonnes of sands grading 1.9% ilmenite, 0.5% rutile and 0.3% zircon. The sands are aeolian (subaerial) dunes about 10 km inland from the seacoast.

Tiomin proposes using gravity concentration and a combination of magnetic and electrostatic separation to produce ilmenite, rutile and zircon concentrates, with the titanium minerals sold to the pigment industry and the zircon concentrate shipped for further treatment.