atlas seeking a partner to develop magnetite, page-9

and this:

From Lateline:

Foreign workers flagged for iron-ore project
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Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Broadcast: 28/11/2007

Reporter: Dianne Bain

One of China's biggest steel mills has flagged bringing in hundreds of foreign workers to help build a multi-billion-dollar iron ore project in Western Australia's north.


Transcript
ALI MOORE: One of China's biggest steel mills has flagged bringing in hundreds of foreign workers to help build a multi-billion dollar iron ore project in Western Australia's north. CITIC Pacific has ambitious plans to build a port and Western Australia's largest desalination plant at Cape Preston by 2009 and says it will need thousands of workers to do it.

Dianne Bain reports.

DIANNE BAIN: Larry Yung is a Chinese billionaire who likes to keep a very low profile but his company and country's need for WA's iron ore has brought him out of his comfort zone.

LARRY YUNG, CITIC PACIFIC: Every year we need to use 8 million tonnes of iron ore. Now we just developed want to be going to the 15 millions tonnes, so iron ore is very important for us.

DIANNE BAIN: Mr Yung's Hong Kong listed company CITIC Pacific is spending $5 billion building a desalination plant bigger than the one in Kwinana, a power station and a new deep water port at Cape Preston just south of Karratha. The company will import Chinese technology and train 600 Australians to operate the magnetite iron ore mine which it hopes will be built by 2009 but 2,500 workers are needed for the construction faze and the company will embark on a massive recruitment drive but admits foreign workers may be needed.

BARRY FITZGERALD, CITIC PACIFIC: And those people will be employed under Australian conditions and or the other same thing, there will be no discrimination or no treatment unfair or anything to others.

DIANNE BAIN: CITIC will need to compete for workers with Woodside which needs 3,000 for its Pluto project, BHP and Rio are also scrambling for staff for their expansion works. The business lobby says the boom will be at a risk unless more foreign work visas are issued.

JOHN LANGOULANT, WA CHAMBER OF COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY: We would like to see a broader range of visas available to allow employers to bring people into the state to ensure that these construction projects and new plants are actually able to get up and get running as quickly as possible.

DIANNE BAIN: The demand for labour is one of the key issues facing both the State and Federal Governments and any move to increase the number of temporary visas will certainly face tough criticism from the union movement.

AGO and other juniors do have a future and the Chinese have the technology to deal with Magnetite.