Well what an interesting morning I've had today, I feel I've picked up quite a bit of information at the AGM and as promised I will outline my observations for you all.
Firstly, the little price spike today will be due to this article today in The West http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/business/a/-/news/15375841/ioh-offers-new-port-solution/ and AV specifically mentioned this article as being speculative. They are still doing their due dilligence on at least four potential barge/port sites but yes they are very serious about this and hence the lodging of necessary environmental docs for the Cape Preston site as well as others.
Secondly, I arrived at the AGM and ended up in an elevator with two well dressed Japanese gentlemen. They entered the room after me, and were greeted personally by Richard Court... Interesting. They were later introduced as representatives of Sumisho, the first time they had ever been represented at an AGM. AV later made several mentions of selling iron ore into Japan and compared the Bungaroo ore body to those of RIO/ Robe River who have been successfully selling the exact same product into Japan. Do not discount the possibility of a Japanese partner at the Buckland Project especially now OPR has fallen over.
Iron Valley was discussed briefly, still fairly positive that FMG will take up the optionbut AV assured everyone that they were working very hard on a plan B if that option falls over.
We were told that MinRes are actually developing Lamb Creek at a rate of knots and may actually ship ore by the end of the year! Bit of a balls-up that we didn't lock in a royalty as part of that deal but of course that wasn't mentioned and to be fair we did cash in nicely on that tenement $42 million from memory. Also mentioned that RIO might be mining Koodaideri by 2015 where we have a 2% royalty although not 100% sure that the IOH ore body will be mined immediately.
OK... So the big focus is Bungaroo (The Buckland Project). AV is very bullish on this, the big thing I took away was the repeated mention of a low cost project. I was interested in this because of the trucking distance it looks to me like being expensive - but the key is in the strip ratio of just 1:1. I was told that FMG are working at around 5:1 or 6:1 so this is where we make a huge efficiency over other projects and this is what makes the Buckland Project a winner via trucking & barge.
Bottom line, AV is supremely confident that Buckland will attract partenrs & be the game changer for IOH underpinned by FMG taking up the Iron Valley option. Keeping in mind that our current market cap is $130 mill, we have $100 mill cash and if FMG take up the option it's another lazy $20 mill cash so we are Sorely undervalued by the market and he wants ro put that right.
Fire away any questions, There was alot discussed.
IOH Price at posting:
81.0¢ Sentiment: Hold Disclosure: Held
