Milled zircon is widely used throughout the global ceramics industry. It is a major ingredient in the manufacture of ceramic glazes and it is an even more important component in the production of unglazed porcelain tiles. Taken as a whole, ceramics manufacture accounted for nearly 55% of total zircon sand consumption in 2006.

Customers requirements:
Remove rutile and light ore, no need to remove magnetic minerals, and increase zircon sand grade to 66-67% from 58-65%.

This absence of milling capacity underlines two characteristics of the zircon industry:

• Zircon processing operations have tended to be established in close proximity to end-users of the processed products.

• Sand producing companies have by and large not engaged in the downstream processing of their sand, even when that downstream processing only involves milling, a technology familiar to the mining sector.