freight costs

I thought it would be interesting to discuss this because in fact it will be the largest cost in the initial critical stage of production (by critical I mean if you fail in stage 1 you don't get to stage 2)

From memory it was $90 per tonne for freight which is largely a result of having to truck it 270KM to the nearest rail. To me (even allowing for higher oil prices seems at first glance a bit excessive) I mean cheap bulk commodities have been transported accross the planet i.e > 10000KM.



Maybe trucking is very inefficient....
But would anyone know how many tonnes a truck can carry & how fuel efficient they are e.g 1km/per litre ?

Picking some wild guesstimates
If a truck could carry 100Tonnes and travel at 1km per litre (at $1 per litre) then the delivery cost is just $2.70 /tonne
Of course that's just the fuel & does not cover the return trip.

Cheers,
Peter