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Tronox Namakwa Sands Restarts Furnace as Global Zircon Demand Grows
The restarting of Tronox Holdings’s furnace and the plans to bring production back online at its Namakwa Sands mine in Saldanha, South Africa, comes as long-term demand for zircon strengthens. The move follows the group’s November 2025 announcement that it would temporarily idle one furnace in Saldanha and initiate a temporary shutdown of its West Mine to reduce inventory and enhance cash flow, thereby supporting its new East OFS (Orange Feldspathic Sand) project. In August 2026 the New York Stock Exchange-listed mining group said growing demand for zircon had led it to restart the furnace and resume production.
The Namakwa West Mine, an open-cast heavy mineral strip mine, produces titanium dioxide feedstock suitable for both chloride and sulphate TiO2 processes. It is based at Brand-se-Baai, about 270 km from the Saldanha Bay smelter. Alongside these products, it also produces zircon, rutile and pig iron, which are used as feedstock across a wide range of applications, including pigments, metals, ceramics and foundries.
From ceramics to computer chips: why zircon is becoming a high-tech heavyweight?
Zircon is also used in refractory applications to protect the interior of high-temperature furnaces, as well as in foundries and precision investment casting processes for the casting of metals and alloys into various products. Another application is the production of a broad range of zirconia chemicals, which in turn, have a diverse range of end uses including ceramics, refractory, catalysts, coating electronics and biomedical related products. Cognitive Market Research and Mordor Intelligence have both said demand for zircon is expected to grow over the next few years. They say the main drives for this growth are stable demand from traditional industries like ceramics, refractories, and foundries, but added that high value-added applications in cutting-edge sectors are also set to play a part. The new growth areas are sectors like solid-state batteries, aerospace and electronics and biomedical applications.Tronox is set up to take advantage of this growing demand. The restarting of the furnace and production at its West Mine follows Tronox commissioning the East OFS mine in November.
East OFS and Fairbreeze Expansions secure Tronox’s long-term feedstock supply
The East OFS, also based at Brand-se-Baai, along with the Fairbreeze Expansion, Tronox’s mineral sands mine based on the east coast of KwaZulu-Natal (near Mtunzini and Richards Bay) are replacing existing mines that are nearing the end of their lives.
www.tronox.com