can we do a poll, page-31

Here are the possible contenders as the next Fortescue:

Gindalbie Metals (90¢): Once a small gold producer, Gindalbie struck it lucky when it realised that on the southern end of its mineral tenements near Geraldton on WA’s mid-west coast was a large iron ore resource. Within months of closing (and later selling) its Minjar gold mine, Gindalbie had "morphed" into an iron ore player. A major management shuffle followed with company founder David McSweeney making way for former Portman boss, George Jones.

Jones has been the driving force behind the development of close ties with the Chinese steel producer, AnSteel, which on June 4 bought a 13% stake in Gindalbie and will be the major buyer of the company’s mix of high grade, direct shipping ore, and lower grade magnetite ore which will be converted into blast furnace feedstock in China. Two years ago Gindalbie was trading at 8¢. Today it is 90¢.

Sundance Resources (47¢): One of the brave new breed of Australian miners prepared to tackle the challenge of Africa, Sundance has its foot on an A-class iron ore deposit in Cameroon. Discovered almost 30 years ago by geologists working for the United Nations and a Canadian Government aid agency, the Mbalam ore body is already known to contain 218 million tonnes of premium material. Getting it to a port and then to a market has always been the challenge (not to mention the risk of investing $2 billion in central Africa).

Times change, prices rise, Africa has become less daunting, and Mbalam is now the subject of a major drilling campaign, which Sundance believes will yield a billion tonnes of iron ore, and permit the development of the project which looks awfully like that of Fortescue – but with an African flavour.