Ann: Hawsons Signs Binding Agreement with Flinders Ports, page-44

I fully agree TFG.

I was shocked initially when I read the heading of the announcement...Shocked because how could HIO agree to help build a port or agree to shipping of its in the air if/when and in what form or size the mine will progress.

But then I read the announcement and it's not at all specified to what they are committing to or what exactly is binding...It just says they will cooperate...So really not much has changed from what I can see.

Only thing I can say about it is that it might be an early indication that they are planning to wait for conditions to improve sufficiently to go ahead with the full scale 20Mtpa mine. This is a positive development IMO since it is the scenario that offers the best economics and biggest upside potential.
I would be quite frustrated if say 6 or 12months from now at the first signs of improvement in conditions the raise a much smaller amount and start building a small scale mine with a pipe line to Broken Hill....and then 12 months later the world economy starts firing on all cylinder and the massive investments in green steel infrastructure start to feed into demand, and they change strategy to go big right away because the high grade IO is desperately needed. They better wait a little longer and go big straight away. Someone will come along and get this going, the demand is there and growing. And interest rates and capex will either normalize of commodity prices will go high enough to justify the expenditure.

The current conditions are exceptional and particularly toxic for large mining projects...They won't stay that way.