I emailed REDHAWK MINING'S MD & CEO Steven Michael regarding this matter the other day, and this was his response to me.

Thanks for your email and interest in the Blacksmith Scoping Study results.

As part of the Scoping Study, Red Hawk’s primary consultant, Ausenco, engaged MLG to undertake the transport and logistics assessment. The key area to be considered by MLG was the trucking configuration to complete the circa 18 hour round trip from Blacksmith to Utah Point (including loading, unloading, rest breaks, etc), while adhering to all standards relating to driver fatigue management. As you have said, companies like Fenix and Strike have a longer haul and their approach is to have a driver swap at the midway point, ie. a loaded truck goes from site to midway and then the driver swaps trucks with an unloaded truck returning from port and takes it back to site. In our case, MLG determined that a transfer point approx. 2/3 the way to port would be ideal to break the journey into a 12 hour roundtrip from site to Whim Creek and back plus a 6 hour roundtrip from Port Hedland to Whim Creek and back.

MLG’s assessment was that unloading and reloading at Whim Creek would be beneficial as it does not require coordination of inbound and outbound trucks and it provides a stockpile for sprint capacity into Utah Point. As Red Hawk progresses through the PFS and DFS, we will be further refining the trucking solution to try and avoid the costly double-handling of unloading and reloading trucks. This may be achieved by simply decoupling dollies rather than unloading ore. However, if some kind of stockyard or holding yard is required at Whim Creek, it will be not much more than a flat area with a modest stockpile being serviced by front end loaders. There is no requirement to build any significant infrastructure at Whim Creek. Our aim is to maximise the transport efficiency while reducing capital and operating costs, as trucking is our single biggest operating cost item.

I hope this addresses your concerns over the need for a potential Whim Creek facility.