Last week, Iluka Resources (ILU) reported its first-half results showing it received an average $US1450/tonne for zircon. Those results also showed that, by July, the price was above $US2000 per tonne and you hear plenty of talk around the sector that contracts being set at $US3000 are not far away.

In a recent announcement, Alkane Resources (ALK) noted that strong zircon demand, combined with a tightening supply, had fuelled a dramatic increase in prices. Contracted zircon prices from mineral sands companies were $US1700 to $US2000/tonne in the June quarter while spot prices hit $US3200/tonne, it reported.

The demand ranges from ceramics (all those new bathrooms in China) to a bone substitute in human implants (all we geriatrics breaking hips) to the production of zirconium oxychloride (all those chemical processes).

Other heavy minerals are seeing rises, too, with rutile and ilmenite prices on strong upward trajectories.

Metallica Minerals (MLM), which has already attracted our attention for its scandium in Queensland, has now done a deal with Rio Tinto (RIO) to assess the latter's zircon-rutile project which runs to the north of Bairnsdale and Lakes Entrance in Victoria.

But the big news of the week was a scoping study from Image Resources (IMA) on its North Perth Basin heavy minerals project. The figures were pretty robust: a payback within 22 months, capital cost of $84 million and cashflow after capital over the mine's life of between $170m and $259m. Over the planned 12-year life, the mine is projected to produce 1.39 million tonnes of ilmenite, 85,000 tonnes of rutile, 193,000 tonnes of zircon and 93,000 tonnes of leucoxene.

Meanwhile, Image has moved a drill rig to its Cyclone Extended heavy minerals project in the Eucla Basin to test several new targets.