Prominer, thank you for your input again. The layering of...

Prominer,
thank you for your input again.

The layering of material, is that done by front end loader or now a stacker off the train unloading belt in the ore sheds?

Hopefully Mixing of filter cake will probably increase if volumes grow further as a result of upgraded plant maybe ramping up above design?.(that allowed 50 odd staff reduction I believe),so the more the merrier as far as cheap feed materials go.
As long as shipping costs stay around 2/3rds of budget that is near enough a $4US cash bonus per ton.
New shipping software allowed an extra 3500T loaded and shipped for free this month on just one vessel.That vessels draft with that load and fuel would have been around 18.4mtrs,far deeper than allowed in the past .It isn't much but its still $20k a boat load reduction in shipping cost,or around $1.2mUS - US10c a ton
I wonder if that will allow them to have a closer Cape mooring point, cutting the shuttle time/loading time down further?
The 150-200 staff reduction over six months,announced last month were STEEL WORKERS if I am not mistaken,so little impact on IO cost unless I have missed something.
Happy to be corrected -Prominer.

Malmanu - unfortunately the SI restructuring costs are a real cash drag on this operation,with $60m? to go,along with redundancy costs as part of the second round of restructuring.
$60m is not far off steels cash shed on an annual basis in the last year.
There is little value in the IO operation at current prices,but still the potential to create cash from continuing operations,while booking a paper loss,by consuming ore with much prior capital invested.
So cash stripping/shedding while that is still a viable option - i.e. getting some invested capital returned to the kitty to pay wind-down costs.

Much of ARI's current financial position is dependent on how the current economics of its ARC furnaces, proximity to its specialist steel placement in major cities and price rises on its steel products have altered steels dynamics and INCOME.
It's Blast furnace costs should be also following the market down - but 200 redundancies is a cost up front.

Fitnfam