Funds to help start mining dealThursday, 6 July 2006. 11:07...

Funds to help start mining deal
Thursday, 6 July 2006. 11:07 (AEDT)Thursday, 6 July 2006. 10:07 (ACST)Thursday, 6 July 2006. 10:07 (AEST)Thursday, 6 July 2006. 11:07 (ACDT)Thursday, 6 July 2006. 08:07 (AWST)
A 20-year quest to develop an iron ore deposit in the Pilbara, in north-west Western Australia, will reach a milestone today with the Perth-based company Mineralogy due to be handed a $290 million cheque to start mining.

In March, Mineralogy announced Hong Kong-based Citic Pacific had secured the rights to mine up to six billion tonnes of magnetite at Cape Preston.

The deal is worth about $7 billion.

Meanwhile, Australasian Resources is negotiating to buy of one of Mineralogy's nearby deposits.

Australasian's managing director, Darren Hedley, says it expects to seal the deal within the next two weeks.

"We've been working on our due diligence now for seven months and a key milestone of that was the Citic deal," he said.

"We believe that they will commence immediate construction and that's going to flow on benefits to us because we will have access rights to the new port that they expect to build out at Cape Preston."