Joelbaby & Wowbagger- refreshing to read some factual balanced...

Joelbaby & Wowbagger-


refreshing to read some factual balanced comparative discussion on the "broken record" of Mag Vs Hem.

As you mentioned WB & yourself each IO project have inherent pluses & negs.

IO mining as a BULK commodity is largely about Transport ecomomics; economies of scale and marginal synergies. ORE body size & quality goes without saying.

Today carries another article about AQAs ambitions to mine (two yesterday)& export IO via Cape Prestons port facilities.

Yesterdays & todays articles mentioned how Tony Poli (AQA) was encouraged about the poss of having discussions with Clive Palmer of Mineralogy & Australasian Resources (ARH) about such access as Mineralogy & ARH have the Govt approvals for the port facilities in conjunction with CITIC....oh and FIRB approval.

GETTING to port , port facilities , & at what cost per ton X how many tons is a very big part of what makes each stand alone project viable, marginal or basket cases.
Stand alone stranded ore body deposits no matter how good the drill hits are takes a big back seat when you cant get to port.Port facility access & cost are the next big hurdle.

The Australian 6-5-08 article on AQA...."so infrastructure will remain an issue,but at least Aquila is talking to the big players on the Balmoral leases,like Australasian Resources (ARH) and Citic,to see what can be done".

( makes me wonder.... does the jurno.& the bulk of this IO thread think Australasian Resources are a Honk Kong based o/s group ... when will the penny drop?)

Curiously AQA popped up 14%~ on Tuesday on the news of its feasibility study report & a couple of juniors hitched along in the slipstream via the JV that API & Aquila have.

160 kms of rail line to port & then.... "access to port & harbour facilities " which ARH ,Clive Palmer & Citic are gunna say "yeah... that's alright guys ,you load up first,we can wait...it's ok".

Just for the record....Clive Palmers' Mineralogy pty ltd sold the "rights" for Citic to mine 2 Billion tons of IO from 2 leases on the Balmoral leases.

In vending the "rights" to mine 2 Billion tons of IO to Citic, Minaralogy retained "rigths" to jointly share access & use of port & harbour facilities on a pro rata basis-user pays.

These "rights" to access & use were vended into ARH of which Clive Palmer is the major s/holder @59%~of all ARH stock.

ARH & Clive are currently neg on the additional Billion tons of IO for the ARH project which brings it to 2 Billion ton of IO.....all just 25kms from their port facilities.

Its est by various analysts that Clive Palmers' Mineralogy have in the range of 70-100 Billion tons of IO in their Balmoral leases & are by far and away the largest single holding in aust of IO.


THIRD PARTY access is the Monster hurdle for all IO wanabees and for 3rd party access to happen BHP/RIO "must" become a merged entity.

ARH project at Balmoral will go ahead for reasons mentioned above.
Citic Balmoral project at Cape Preston is the project that was refered to yesterday on this thread as THE largest non BHP/RIO resources project in OZ.Penny dropped??