Ann: HIO BFS Expansion, page-148

The thing is that we know there are plenty of examples of IO hopefulls in the region trying to get enough finance to get an initial project off the ground, having to scale back to have any hope, even then struggling to get ore out of the ground.

But what does HIO do?

With this announcement they are going the other way with an expanded proposal. Would they change the route if it meant financial suicide by risking stalled funding?

No way.

I strongly suspect here are developments at the far end of the pipeline they can't divulge yet. Something along the lines of "if you spend a few million proving the new pipeline is feasible to BFS stage, we will fund it in return for the entire, or X amount of output or use it in a JV DRI/HBI plant".

Whatever it is, I doubt they took this more expensive swerve to the left knowing it's so hard to get the first couple of billion CAPEX financed. Of course, as another poster alluded too, it may just be the state governments offering generous incentives to get a new port happening in order to get a steady flow of long term IO royalties happening out of Braemar.