Location and Transport
AKO
AKO is about 1000m above sea level and about 370kms to port.
The down hill journey with fully loaded trucks should result in significant fuel savings relative to flat land travel. The cost / impact of the empty uphill journey is unknown.
Approx 60kms of all weather road is required to be built, along with a few KMs of bypasses for small towns.
There is no existing infrastructure at the port for bulk loading iron ore onto ships, and facilities would need to be built.
Initial thoughts are for a ~1km conveyor system and loader, which can't be cheap.
The good news is this cost can be spread over time, and the cost per tonne for loading over the estimated 50 year life of mine should be very small.
Orior Capital estimate ~130 trucks will be required to transport 2Mt per annum.
The potential for optimisation is unknown.
FEX
FEX is about 500kms from the port of Geraldton where the company own storage facilities and have access to exisiting ship loading infrastructure.
The company own and operate a "state-of-the-art fleet of 25 quad road trains which provide a daily haulage capacity to Fenix of up to 4,000 tonnes per day" (I think the number may have increased to 30).
In June last year FEX announced they were acquiring the remaining 50% of their haulage business, which delivered a significant $10/t cost saving to the business.
It is improbable that there will ever be a rail haulage solution to service this area, so FEX will be beholden to fuel price fluctuations - unless they can viably electrify their fleet.
The ownership of their existing facilities is a massive bonus if the company can unlock more resource.
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