Iron ore price, page-5292

most likely they won't ever be debt free, what they will do is pay of the expensive debt and refinance with lower interest debt.

Debt holders part of the capital structure of most companies just like share holders, as long as long term debt can be attained at interest rates well below the companies return on capital, it doesn't make sense to clear all debt.

Of course you don't want do much of your capital funded by debt, but if the company owns assets producing 15% return on capital and they are able to borrow at 5%, it makes sense to have 20% to 30% of their capital funded by debt, and the other 80% to 70% funded by share holders equity, because that increases the returns to the share holders.