iron ore wannabees

here is classic example of a iron ore wannabee going no where fast with out a railway.

Feeling railroaded?
no port in a storm?

Noel Dyson
Friday, 7 October 2011

DAVID Flanagan has a problem. He has just closed the deal on Atlas Iron’s takeover of Ferraus but faces the same battle that many a Pilbara digger has encountered – lack of access to a rail line.



Atlas managing director David Flanagan at Wodgina.

Flanagan told the Hedland Economic & Resources Forum that his company had been successful with its Pardoo operation trucking its ore to Port Hedland Port.

However, despite the company cutting its own road most of the way to Port Hedland it will only ever be able to shift 15 million tonnes per annum this way.

With Ferraus on board and the ground it has gained from other acquisitions, that sort of throughput is not going to cut it. It also falls short of the allocation Atlas has been given at Port Hedland Port.

Rail is probably the only option.

“We are talking to the people you would think we should be talking to, although I’m not sure I can tell you I’m talking to who you think we should be talking to,” Flanagan said.

“Financially for us we think the best thing we can do is use unused capacity on existing railway lines.”

Herein lies the rub. It is the age-old Pilbara question of who has train sets and who is allowed to play with them.

BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto have built their businesses around having a fully integrated supply chain. They own their own rail lines and have continued to argue that they are a vital part of the production process. To allow other parties onto their rail lines would hurt their business, they say.