Australia is presently the world's principal producer of rutile and zircon,
and also provides a major share of the world's ilmenite. Since 1980,
Australia's share of the world's output of these minerals has fallen.
Exhaustion of known resources, together with the changing composition
of new deposits, is expected to result in Australia's share of the rutile and
zircon output continuing to decline. Its role as a major supplier of
upgraded ilmenite, that is synthetic rutile, is expected to increase. In 1994, the Bureau of Resource Sciences assessed Australia's
demonstrated resources of mineral sands as follows: rutile 14.4 Mt,
ilmenite 132.5 Mt, and zircon 21.0 Mt. These resources are located along
the coast of Queensland and New South Wales, in the Murray Basin of
New South Wales and Victoria, in the southwest corner of Western
Australia, and in the Eneabba region, north of Perth. However, some 45
per cent of rutile and zircon resources along the coast of Queensland and
New South Wales are not available for mining because of environmental
concerns. World demonstrated resources are estimated at 40 Mt (contained TiO2)
for rutile, 50 Mt for zircon and approximately 312 Mt (contained T1O2)
for ilmenite. Outside of Australia, the most important resources of rutile,
ilmenite and zircon are in South Africa (rutile, zircon , and ilmenite in the
form of titania slag), Sierra Leone (rutile), India (ilmenite, zircon and
rutile), and Canada (hard rock ilmenite). Significant resources of ilmenite
occur in Madagascar and Mozambique.