Ann: Acquisition of Atlas Iron Limited, page-105

Just read a piece summarising the potential impact of the government's 'intervention', to clarify port and NWI development rights.

Interesting take on 'junior miners' in the concluding paragraph;

"MinRes also noted last Friday in a statement that Atlas’ 13 million tonnes a year of allocated capacity at Utah Point was reserved for junior miners (such as in lithium), suggesting Fortescue and and the Rinehart mine will find it hard to get hold of this extra tonnage because of their existing port capacity and scale (Fortescue ships around 170 million tonnes a year through the port and Roy Hill is building to its capacity of 55 million tonnes)."

I think most people assumed "junior miners' meant "junior iron ore miners".

I'd suggest Ellison isn't one who so assumed!

Some are hanging their hat on it being difficult for MIN to claim they are a junior miner, therefore being in the same boat as FMG & Roy Hill, when it comes to port rights.

Such interpretations limit the understanding of "junior" to "small" (by an arbitrary measure, that doesn't seem to be quantified).

But, "junior" primarily means "young", "immature", "growing", "developing".

That's Lithium, and that's why Ellison's in the driver's seat......I reckon.