IRON ore junior AustralasianResources has struck gold andsecured...

IRON ore junior Australasian
Resources has struck gold and
secured a $3.3 billion sales contract
with an international steel
service provider.
The off-take agreement with
Macram Limited comes off the
back of last week’s acquisition of
International Minerals.
Macram, part of the Macsteel
International Group, links commodity
producers and consumers
across the globe.
The sales contract was already
included in the International
Minerals purchase.
It includes a commitment of
two-million tonnes of pellets a
year for 15 years.
Based on today’s iron ore price
company representatives estimated
it equated to $3.3 billion of firm
sales.
Sales are expected to begin in
December 2009.
Australasian Resources managing
director Darren Hedley said
the contract also provided for an
extension from two to seven million
tonnes a year.
The extension would be subject
to further negotiations with
MacSteel and if successful, would
represent $11.5 billion of sales
revenue.
At the Diggers and Dealers
forum in Kalgoorlie last week,
Australasian announced it had
struck a deal with magnetite baron
Clive Palmer to back the fledgling
miner.
Under the deal, Mr Palmer will
emerge with a 76 per cent stake in
Australasian in return for granting
it the rights to mine one billion
tonnes of ore at the South
Balmoral magnetite deposit near
Cape Preston.
The South Balmoral block is an
extension of Mr Palmer’s primary
Cape Preston magnetite resource,
for which China’s Citic Pacific
paid $290 million for the mining
rights over one billion tonnes of
ore.