The Tiwest Joint Venture was a joint venture between Tronox Western Australia Pty Ltd and subsidiaries of Exxaro Australia Sands Pty Ltd. The Tiwest Joint Venture was a mining and processing company, established in 1988, to extract
ilmenite
Ilmenite is a titanium-iron oxide mineral with the idealized formula . It is a weakly magnetic black or steel-gray solid. Ilmenite is the most important ore of titanium and the main source of titanium dioxide, which is used in paints, printi ...
,
rutile
Rutile is an oxide mineral composed of titanium dioxide (TiO2), the most common natural form of TiO2. Rarer polymorphs of TiO2 are known, including anatase, akaogiite, and brookite.
Rutile has one of the highest refractive indices at vis ...
,
leucoxene Leucoxene is a fine granular alteration product of titanium minerals. It varies in color from yellow to brown.
It consists mainly of rutile or anatase. It is observed in some igneous rocks and iron ore deposits as the result of the alteration of il ...
and
zircon
Zircon () is a mineral belonging to the group of nesosilicates and is a source of the metal zirconium. Its chemical name is zirconium(IV) silicate, and its corresponding chemical formula is Zr SiO4. An empirical formula showing some of th ...
from a
mineral sands
Heavy mineral sands are a class of ore deposit which is an important source of zirconium, titanium, thorium, tungsten, rare-earth elements, the industrial minerals diamond, sapphire, garnet, and occasionally precious metals or gemstones.
Heavy mi ...
deposit at
Cooljarloo, 14 km north of
Cataby,
Western Australia
Western Australia (WA) is the westernmost state of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east, and South Australia to the south-east. Western Aust ...
.
Tiwest Joint Venture
/ref> As of June 2012, the joint venture was formally dissolved, when Tronox
Tronox Limited is an American worldwide chemical company involved in the titanium products industry with approximately 6,500 employees. Following its acquisition of the mineral sands business formerly belonging to South Africa's Exxaro Resources, ...
acquired the mineral-sands-related divisions of Exxaro
Exxaro Resources Limited (Exxaro, the company or the group) is a South Africa-based diversified resources company with a coal business and acquisitive growth prospects in minerals and energy.
Exxaro is among the top five coal producers in Sou ...
outrigh
Tiwest's corporate office (sales/marketing/accounting/administration/IT/etc) was located in Bentley, five minutes drive south of the Perth, Western Australia, Perth central business district. During the joint-venture phase of operations, from 1988 through 2012, heavy mineral concentrate was trucked from Cooljarloo, 1 hour and 15 minutes south to the Chandala mineral sands processing plant, near Muchea, 70 km north of Perth, Western Australia, Perth. The concentrate was then separated in a facility known as a dry mill, using a magnetic
Magnetism is the class of physical attributes that occur through a magnetic field, which allows objects to attract or repel each other. Because both electric currents and magnetic moments of elementary particles give rise to a magnetic field, m ...
separation-process. Ilmenite
Ilmenite is a titanium-iron oxide mineral with the idealized formula . It is a weakly magnetic black or steel-gray solid. Ilmenite is the most important ore of titanium and the main source of titanium dioxide, which is used in paints, printi ...
was further processed on-site into synthetic rutile
Rutile is an oxide mineral composed of titanium dioxide (TiO2), the most common natural form of TiO2. Rarer polymorphs of TiO2 are known, including anatase, akaogiite, and brookite.
Rutile has one of the highest refractive indices at vis ...
, which is used by pigment
A pigment is a powder used to add or alter color or change visual appearance. Pigments are completely or nearly solubility, insoluble and reactivity (chemistry), chemically unreactive in water or another medium; in contrast, dyes are colored sub ...
plants to manufacture paints and similar products. Additional minerals, produced as a byproduct of the rutile production process, were sold as-is. Most synthetic rutile from Chandala was then trucked to Kwinana, 30 km south of Perth, Western Australia, Perth, to the Tiwest-owned pigment plant, which produces titanium dioxide
Titanium dioxide, also known as titanium(IV) oxide or titania , is the inorganic compound derived from titanium with the chemical formula . When used as a pigment, it is called titanium white, Pigment White 6 (PW6), or Colour Index Internationa ...
a.k.a. TiO2. A $100M upgrade to this Kwinana pigment plant was approved by the boards of both Tronox and Exxaro, and was expected to increase TiO2 pigment production by up to 50% before 2013. TiO2 is the best commercially viable whiting agent known, and is typically used in the manufacture of paints, plastics, and food stuffs.
As part of the 2012 acquisitio
the assets of the TIWEST Joint Venture have been folded into the sole parent company, Tronox
Tronox Limited is an American worldwide chemical company involved in the titanium products industry with approximately 6,500 employees. Following its acquisition of the mineral sands business formerly belonging to South Africa's Exxaro Resources, ...
, which continues to operate in the mineral-sands industry.
References
External links
Tiwest Joint Venture
(historical)
Mining companies of Australia
Companies based in Western Australia
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