One of Africa’s most experienced mineral sands producers says the global supply-demand balance for both titanium and zircon looks highly favourable. Speaking in Perth last week at the 2012 Paydirt Africa Downunder conference, former Managing Director and current Advisor to Mineral Deposits Ltd, Jeff Williams, said that while demand is expected to continue to ratchet up to 3% or more per annum, supply is expected to remain essentially flat. “Mineral sands supply from existing global mines is expected to decline and new titanium and zircon projects scheduled to come on stream will only do a bit better than make up for the shortfall from existing mines,” Williams said.

“This supply tightness has emerged in recent years due to reduced production from existing mines and a lack of new high quality capital efficient, quick response supply options. This gap has been partly due to under-investment in mineral sands exploration over an extended period.”

Williams pointed to the long timeframes – seven years – to typically bring on new titanium-zicon mines.

“These style of mines require significant expertise to execute and that has added to the demand-supply tension,” Williams said.

He pointed to China’s rapid emergence in the market as a prominent market player from an almost nil position, as titanium feedstock and zircon prices moved to record highs.

“Certainly, the pricing power has shifted in this period away from the major consumers to the mineral sands ore producers,’ Williams said.

“Contracts are shifting from long-term provisions to contracts of significantly shorter duration, with no upside pricing constraints and more frequents price negotiations – six monthly for titanium feedstocks and quarterly for zircon.”

The global titanium market is worth $4.5 billion a year, and $3.5 billion for zircon with Australia the largest supplier with 21% market share in titanium and 41% of zircon supply.