{{Short description|Former mining company in Western Australia}} {{Use dmy dates|date=July 2019}}

{{Infobox company | owners = {{ubl|Tronox Western Australia Pty Ltd|Subsidiaries of Exxaro Australia Sands Pty Ltd.}} | founded = {{start date and age|1988}} | industry = Mining | defunct = {{end date|2012|06}} | hq_location_city = Bentley, Western Australia | hq_location_country = Australia | website = {{url|tiwest.com.au}} | fate = Operations absorbed by Tronox }}

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, rutile, leucoxene and zircon from a mineral sands deposit at Cooljarloo, 14&nbsp;km north of Cataby, Western Australia.<ref>[http://www.tiwest.com.au Tiwest Joint Venture]</ref> As of June 2012, the joint venture was formally dissolved, when Tronox acquired the mineral-sands-related divisions of Exxaro outright.[http://investor.tronox.com/releasedetail.cfm?releaseid=683427]{{citation needed|date=November 2013}}

Tiwest's corporate office (sales/marketing/accounting/administration/IT/etc) was located in Bentley, five minutes drive south of the 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&nbsp;km north of Perth. The concentrate was then separated in a facility known as a dry mill, using a magnetic separation-process. Ilmenite was further processed on-site into synthetic rutile, which is used by pigment plants to manufacture paints and similar products. Additional minerals,{{vague|date=November 2013}} produced as a byproduct of the rutile production process, were sold as-is. Most synthetic rutile from Chandala was then trucked to Kwinana, 30&nbsp;km south of Perth, to the Tiwest-owned pigment plant, which produces titanium dioxide a.k.a. TiO<sub>2</sub>. A $100M upgrade to this Kwinana pigment plant was approved{{when|date=November 2013}} by the boards of both Tronox and Exxaro, and was expected{{citation needed|date=November 2013}} to increase TiO<sub>2</sub> pigment production by up to 50%{{vague|date=November 2013}} before 2013. TiO<sub>2</sub> is the best{{citation needed|date=November 2013}} commercially viable whiting agent known, and is typically used in the manufacture of paints, plastics, and food stuffs.

As part of the 2012 acquisition,[http://investor.tronox.com/releasedetail.cfm?releaseid=683427] the assets of the TIWEST Joint Venture have been folded into the sole parent company, Tronox, which continues to operate in the mineral-sands industry.

==References== {{Reflist}}

==External links== *[http://www.tiwest.com.au Tiwest Joint Venture] {{Mining companies of Australia}} (historical)

Category:Mining companies of Australia Category:Companies based in Western Australia

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