On a recent tour of the company's projects, Sheffield managing director Bruce McQuitty said China dominated world talc production.

However, he said the country faced a number of challenges, such as the insufficient supply of high grade talc due to exhaustion of its mines and an increase in global and domestic demand.

McQuitty said recent reports cited growth in the Asian market for automotive plastics, ceramic, roofing, paint and paper as key market drivers for talc.

"The Asian market would therefore be a logical target market as potential buyers for any future high grade talc production from Sheffield's projects," he said.

The company has wasted no time since listing on the Australian Securities Exchange in December last year, with aggressive exploration at its projects in the North Perth Basin region.

It recently secured a dominant ground position over the 175 kilometre long Moora Talc Belt, which has been controlled by major companies such as Western Mining Corporation and Rio Tinto for the past 50 years.

McQuitty said that within its tenure there were more than 20 known talc occurrences, several which have had significant amounts of previous drilling.

Last week, Sheffield started drilling the Moora Talc Belt project.

McQuitty said the diamond drilling program at Moora was between 1500-1800 metres and would test several targets for the presence of high quality marketable talc.

He said the company was expecting results from the drilling at the end of this month. Subject to exploration success, Sheffield's strategy was to prove up large deposits or clusters of deposits containing high quality talc.

According to McQuitty the deposits could be capable of supporting a long-life direct shipping mining operation.

The Moora Talc Belt is best known for the Three Springs talc mine, which is located in the northern half of the belt and is the largest talc mine in the Southern Hemisphere and the second largest in the world.

Three Springs, which was one of the stops on the recent site visit, is operated by Rio Tinto's French-based subsidiary Luzenac Group after Rio acquired the mine in 2001 from Western Mining Corporation for $US27.8 million.

McQuitty said Rio has had its Luzenac global talc business on the market for a couple of years and French industrial minerals conglomerate Imerys had put forward a binding offer of $US340 million for the entire business.

"Prior to listing on the Australian Securities Exchange, Sheffield was advised by Rio that individual talc business units such as Three Springs were not for sale separately," he said.

"The proximity of an existing high-grade talc processing facility abutting Sheffield's own tenements does present opportunity for synergy."

McQuitty said Sheffield's strategy for now was to explore and develop the numerous talc prospects on its large tenement holding, targeting premium-grade microcrystalline talc deposits of similar quality and size to the Three Springs deposit.

He said Sheffield had chosen to focus on proven and emerging bulk mineral provinces with access to existing infrastructure.

During a tour of the company's projects in Carnamah, Eneabba and Yandanooka, McQuitty pointed out the convenience of the rail infrastructure and adjacent highway networks to the region's ports.

"The existing, currently under-utilised state rail infrastructure was a significant benefit - providing a ready link between Sheffield's heavy mineral sands and talc projects and the Geraldton Port," he said.

Sheffield's portfolio also includes seven heavy mineral sands tenements in the region over 2500 square kilometres.

"Since securing these projects there has been a significant improvement in [the] demand for zircon and titanium," McQuitty said.

Drilling at the Eneabba HMS project is underway and McQuitty said Sheffield expected to receive the assay laboratory results at the end of the month.

Sheffield also has iron ore tenements in the Pilbara and intends to target hematite mineralisation adjacent to infrastructure in the region and to build up consolidated holdings over time.

McQuitty has more than 28 years experience in the resource industry and was managing director of Warwick Resources, which successfully merged with Atlas Iron in 2009.

Atlas was Warwick's largest shareholder with a 22.2% stake at the time and issued Warwick shareholders one Atlas share for every three Warwick shares, valuing the company at around $A82 million.

McQuitty said Sheffield's executive chairman Will Burbury, who is a corporate lawyer, and technical director David Archer, a geologist, were also part of the management team at Warwick.

McQuitty said it was great to continue with the same management team at Sheffield.