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MZI signs zircon offtake deal

MZI chief executive Trevor Matthews. Picture: Dione Davidson/The West Australian.

Shares in MZI Resources were firmer after it announced an offtake deal covering all the zircon concentrate to be produced at its flagship Keysbrook mineral sands project near Bunbury.

MZI said it had signed a binding offtake terms sheet with Tricoastal, part of Hainan Wensheng High-Tech Materials Co, which was the largest mineral sands processor in China and a 4.6 per cent shareholder in MZI.

Under the agreement, Tricoastal will buy all the zircon concentrate produced at Keysbrook for five years, with an option to extend the sales agreement for a further five years.

MZI said the deal meant it had sales agreements in place covering about 50 per cent of the forecast annual revenue from Keysbrook and about 60 per cent of forecast annual production.

MZI said it was still in discussions with several parties for offtake agreements covering Keysbrook's high-grade L88 titanium dioxide product.

"The offtake agreement with Tricoastal represents another important step towards development of Keysbrook and comes as MZI moves to finalise the project's debt funding package," the company said in a statement.

MZI chief executive Trevor Matthews said negotiations on the remaining part of its debt package for Keysbrook were now in the final stages.

Shares in the company were up 0.1 cent, or 8.33 per cent, to 1.3 cents at 7.45am.