PREMIER Colin Barnett has all but confirmed that the Oakajee port and rail development will only go ahead in stages following feverish behind-the-scenes negotiations aimed at saving the troubled project. Mr Barnett said the port aspect of the project is likely to go ahead as planned, but the rail line, originally designed to loop through the Mid West and link a number of significant mines in one go, is now likely to only go ahead in stages.
"The one indivisible item is the port itself - and to some extent you can stage the port, but basically a breakwater is a breakwater and it's got to be built - but given that government, state and federal, are funding the port it does seem to me to make it pretty easy for everyone else in the game<' Mr Barnett said.
"If the port is built, basically to a scale... the rail, in terms of a southern and northern line, can be staged.
Start of sidebar. Skip to end of sidebar. .End of sidebar. Return to start of sidebar. "And it is more logical to bring on the closer, most highly advanced mines for this to work."
If a staged construction occurs, it is likely to be a bitter blow for Murchison Metals, which owns half of the Oakajee Port and Rail project with Japan's Mitsubishi.
Murchison's mine is in the northern part of the Oakajee project, and would rely on the construction of the rail line to make it viable. Yesterday, Mr Barnett said the ownership structure of the project was one of the reasons it had run into trouble.
"That's been one of the problems at Oakajee, a conflict between the ownership of the project and the ownership of the mines and a more fundamental conflict that some of the players are there to develop a mine... others are there potentially to develop long term rail and port infrastructure - and the whole financing and return and timeline of those two types of projects are quite different," Mr Barnett said.
