Ann: Chalice commences EM program on Julimar lookalike target, page-67

Food for thoughts in the article by Reuben Adams published elsewhere... on the record IO prices (even v. experienced analysts did not predict Chinas IO demand growing so fast and showing now a sign of jealousy?):



The US iron ore price (62% fe) since late 2007. Pic: Trading Economics

"This is getting absurd.

Iron ore was up another $US6.35 – or 3.4% — yesterday to $US191.45/t (CFR Tianjin port). That’s very close to all-time highs of ~$US200/t, reached in November 2007.

It also is not representative of what some high grade, high value product miners are actually getting.

Environmental regulations in China are prompting steel mills to pay more for the high quality iron ore products – a lot more.

Iron ore ‘lumps’ and ‘pellets’ earn a price premium over iron ore ‘fines’, which must be processed further before going into a steelmaker’s blast furnace.

S&P Global Platts said pellets with 65 per cent iron were receiving a premium of $US64.65 per tonne above the benchmark price.

That’s ~$320/t Australian all up.

Tassie pellet producer Grange Resources (ASX:GRR) says it received average prices for the March quarter of US$228.52/t ($297.66/t), compared with US$174.69/t ($236.77/t) for the December quarter.

That is a huge profit on costs of ~$113/t...

WEEKLY WINNERS

BROCKMAN MINING (ASX:BCK) + 138%

On Friday, Chinese-owned Brockman and major miner Mineral Resources (ASX:MIN) formed a JV to bring a 25 million tonnes a year Pilbara iron ore hub into production.

$8.5bn market cap Mineral Resources will fund ~$105m worth of initial development works at the ‘Marillana’ and ‘Ophthalmia’ project mine sites, as well as on the transport corridor and port area.

The development time frame is estimated at about three-and-a-half years.

VENTURE MINERALS (ASX:VMS) +34%

Venture is on track to be Australia’s next iron ore miner at its Riley mine in northwest Tasmania.

On April 21 the company was just two weeks from commissioning the plant.

“This timing puts the first iron ore shipment on track for this quarter and puts the company in a strong position to take advantage of the historically high iron ore prices,” Venture Minerals managing director Andrew Radonjic says."
GLTAH