Those running Sheffield are no strangers to developing projects and creating value. The team was at the helm at Warwick Resources when the Pilbara iron ore play merged with Atlas Iron in 2009 delivering a tidy profit for Warwick shareholders.

The same team now runs the show at Sheffield.

But while the company continues to hold interest in iron ore tenements, this time around the focus is on the back end of the steel cycle, with Sheffield exploring for mineral sands and talc, which are used to make ceramics, paints and paper.

"We are attracted to bulk commodities which are a dig and deliver proposition, like iron ore," managing director Bruce McQuitty told RESOURCESTOCKS.

He added the bulk commodities that Sheffield was exploring for related to the steel feed cycle, including iron ore and tungsten and the emerging fillers-ceramics pigments cycle that has buoyedstrong demand for mineral sandsand talc.

"Zircon prices are forecast to rise until 2013 due to increasing demand and a lack of new mine development," McQuitty said.

As part of its mineral sands project development program, Sheffield has just completed 10,000 metres of drilling work and it is expected this will lead into resource estimates at four of its projects.

"We tested four advanced projects and we expect to get resource estimates in place for Yandanooka, West Mine North, Ellengail and McCalls," McQuitty said.

"McCalls is a large project with an exploration target of 1.5 million to 2.5 million tonnes with 1.1 per cent to 1.3 per cent heavy minerals."

Sheffield's mineral sands tenements include strategically located deposits in the already proven North Perth Basin and the emerging Eucla and Carnarvon Basin provinces. Its North Perth Basin tenements include six advanced exploration projects - Yandanooka, West Mine North, Ellengail, Irwin and Durack near Eneabba, and the large McCalls deposit near Gingin.

Both Yandanooka and McCalls have a rich history of exploration by mining majors as Iluka Resources did the initial test work at Yandanooka and BHP Billiton was the former owner of McCalls. And it is this historical data that Sheffield is looking to capitalise on.

Iluka explored Yandanooka through the late 1980s and early 2000s and was investigating the possibility of feeding the output through the company's Eneabba facility. But Iluka gave up its tenements as they were considered too small for the company and the grain size was unsuitable for processing at the Eneabba plant. Instead Iluka decided to focus on its South Australian projects.

"Things were not that great inthe mineral sands industry back then," McQuitty said.

"In deciding to concentrate on the Eucla and Murray Basins, Iluka opened up a niche position in the North Perth Basin which Sheffield has seized upon. They dropped some ground which we picked up."

And what Iluka and BHP could not justify as a sound business case, proved to be fortuitous for Sheffield as the booming economies in Asia once again drove commodity prices up.

"We will be doing scoping on four of our North Perth Basin projects later this year and take that forward into feasibility," McQuitty said, adding the West Mine North project already has a mining lease and the capital costs will be low.

One of the key things that could potentially give Sheffield the nimbleness required in getting projects up and running is the use of flexible mobile mining plants, which ensure that more deposits can be developed.

"We are getting the conceptual engineering work done. Similar plants are already in use in the Murray Basin," McQuitty said.

And while Sheffield's mineral sands projects are gathering steam, exploration at its Moora talc project is also expected to gain momentum with the company looking to assess whether its talc is suitable for paper production.

Sheffield recently completed a diamond drilling program of core drilling prospects to demonstrate that its talc deposits are marketable.

McQuitty said the talc market was similar in size to titanium and was dominated by the Chinese, who were net importers. And now with Rio Tinto divesting its talc assets to Imerys, a French company, all of the non-Chinese talc production will be held by privately owned companies. Earlier this year Rio entered into a binding agreement for the sale of its talc business for $US340 million.

And Sheffield's Moora talc tenements are close to Rio's world class Three Springs mine, which is the second largest talc mine in the world and has been in production since 1948. Sheffield's tenements include six exploration licences that have already been granted and one that is awaiting approval.

"We have secured a 175 kilometre strike length of ground that has previously been locked up by majors," McQuitty said. "We are the first junior in the Moora Talc Belt and we are hoping to unearth and demonstrate the potential.

"We will select some prospects once we are confident of the potential. It'll take a bit longer than mineral sands, the assay results will take a couple of months and then we'll make a decision on which projects to progress. McQuitty noted that since the land was freehold, drilling activity could take place only after the wheat harvest was over in November or December.

While Sheffield continues to have interests in iron ore projects, thanks to the management's Warwick Resources legacy, what sets this endeavour apart is the fact that Sheffield's projects this time are closer to transportation infrastructure.

"In the Mid West we are not a prisoner of infrastructure, and railway lines (to transport commodities to ports) are freely accessible," McQuitty said, adding the current development plan of the Oakajee port by 2014-15 nicely dovetails into Sheffield's project development timelines.

As Sheffield develops its projects, it is sufficiently cashed up for exploration work for the next 18 months, but will need to recapitalise for future work, McQuitty says.

"We will have to look at additional funding options to carry it through and it'll be more likely that capital markets will be tapped," he said. Though such a move is still some time away.

With all the projects in the pipeline, Sheffield Resources could also turn out to be a repeat of Warwick - an attractive takeover target. It's a scenario not lost on McQuitty, who acknowledged that the company held real potential especially with some of its bigger projects suiting mining majors.

"When it comes to that, it is very difficult to say. Consolidation needs to happen to achieve infrastructure solutions," McQuitty said.

"We are seeking to accumulate iron ore deposits, but it is still too early to say whether any takeover will happen."

But if Warwick Resources'fortune is any indication, the management team of Sheffield have perfectly positioned the companyon a growth path - one that should delight investors.

*A version of this report, first published in the August 2011 edition of RESOURCESTOCKS magazine, was commissioned by Sheffield Resources