Ann: HIO BFS Expansion, page-156

As we while away the time "speculating" until we have an actual mine in our portfolios--a couple of interesting factoids I picked up yesterday in the Hill whilst we were doing a "memory lane drive" around the old main mine sites and buildings..

Q "Is there enough rail capacity currently for HIO's 10mt pa"
A "Yep no problem"
Q "What about 20 mt pa?"
A "Would be a bit of a stretch. Would have to build quite a few more sidelines for passing--but could be done"
Talking then about slurry pipelines...
"Interesting thing about magnetite soft iron ore slurry lines--the pipe actually develops a coating inside (rather than being abraded away as you'd expect) so much so that they had to send a "pig" ( a rotary scrubbing device on wheels that travels through the pipe) down it from time to time to clean it out"
( -it was in Oz -I think GRR)

No real room in the BH rail yards area for the big de-watering and stockpile area need before its loaded onto rail. Much of the yard and shunting areas are already being used by the mineral sands operation south of BH which has been running for a long time-more than 10 years at least.

--Suggestion " they could extend an old spur line near the Pinnacles "

(a couple of little peaks on the outskirts of BH --(which you all would have seen while watching the Mad Max 2 movie--the "compound" was next to them --I was an extra in the movie--an entire other story )
The little line belongs to the Pinnacles mine which was a tiny private operation back in the day -not sure if its even running anymore.

"There would be plenty of room there for a loading /stockpile area and to park the necessary number of ore trucks"

Source--executive--impeccable--no "pub rumours" from this guy...

With the amount of research being done and ideas proposed (hello Tran and others --you know who you are) , I'd think that HIO will soon be recruiting Board members from the HC crew ....lol