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Sierra Rutile going solo

ierra Rutile Holdings Ltd (SRX) man- in FY2022. However, Iluka still elected to lion in cash so we actually start in a strong
Saging director Thomas de Bruyn is demerge its wholly owned African sub- position. We believe that we can gener-
confident the African-focused mineral sidiary into a separately listed vehicle, al- ate more cash and we believe that we can
sands miner can thrive as a standalone lowing the world’s largest zircon miner to sustain it.”
business when it hits the boards early this also focus more resources on its emerg- Former Iluka chairman Greg Martin will
month. ing rare earths division, including the up- assume the same role on the five-person
Demerged from Iluka Resources Ltd, coming Eneabba operations in Western SRX board alongside de Bruyn, finance
SRX shares are expected to start trad- Australia. director Martin Alciaturi and non-exec-
ing on the ASX from August 5. The com- Speaking at a media briefing session utive directors Graham Davidson and
pany’s cornerstone assets are the estab- last month, de Bruyn said the rude health Joanne Palmer.
lished Area 1 rutile operations and the of the Sierra Rutile business over the past
Sembehun development project in Sierra 12 months meant SRX was now more
Leone. Upon listing, SRX will be able to than capable of standing on its own two
access a $US45 million trust fund from feet.
Iluka to support existing rehabilitation ob- “For the last four quarters, we have had If we were a West
sustained operations,” de Bruyn said.
ligations. borrow money from Iluka, so we are self- “ Perth company
Iluka exits Africa almost six years after “We’ve produced 12,000 tpm of rutile with a project called
acquiring the primary rutile operations on average, we haven’t had the need to
for $375 million and a bit over two years Sembehun and nothing
since threatening to halt production due sustaining and we are generating cash. else, then we would need
to poor market conditions in the wake of “With the demerger, Iluka is also giving
the pandemic. us $US45 million in a rehabilitation trust to raise some equity
Under de Bruyn’s leadership, the SRX fund and we’ll use that money to do all of sometime soon just to
business has turned around dramati- the rehabilitation in Area 1 to meet our re- finish the DFS. This is
cally over the last 18 months and was habilitation obligations.
expected to deliver 144,000t at $US892/t “At the end of May, we had $US20 mil- quite different.

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