plenty riding on anketell decision

Plenty riding on Anketell decision

By Kate Emery | View Archive
December 19th, 2011, 1:21 pm

If Premier Colin Barnett plans to meet his end-of-year deadline for a decision on how a new port at Anketell Point will be developed, he has just two weeks to make a decision.

There's plenty riding on the outcome and it's not just the future of Aquila Resources' West Pilbara iron ore project, although the Tony Poli-headed miner has arguably the most to win or lose.

Forge Resources became the latest to join the Anketell queue last week after agreeing to pay Atlas Iron $40 million for its Balla Balla magnetite project. Yes, Forge is also looking into whether trans-shipping out of Balla Balla harbour could work but in the meantime its hand is up for space at the yet-to-be-built Pilbara port and it's not alone.

India's NMDC, too, will be watching the process closely as it continues to talk to Atlas about taking a slice of its other magnetite project, Ridley. Given how closely the Pilbara's miners have historically guarded their infrastructure it would scarcely be a surprise if NMDC wants some kind of reassurance over Anketell before it commits to a deal.

Then there is Iron Ore Holdings, which this month announced a new magnetite discovery about 10km from Aquila's proposed railway. IOH isn't saying too much about its long-term plans but the smart money is on it opting to develop the West Pilbara assets, because of the proximity of Anketell, and continuing to offload the more stranded deposits, as it has been doing lately.

When it comes to Ipoh's Iron Valley deposit, the obvious buyer is Fortescue, which owns the deposit on the other side of the fence believed to be part of the same ore body. Scuttlebutt suggests Fortescue is interested but price is an issue. Part of IOH's strategy in selling other non-core assets to Rio Tinto ($32 million) and Mineral Resources ($42 million), then, maybe putting a floor under the price Fortescue would potentially have to pay for Iron Valley.

• Wolf Minerals is moving closer towards its dream of bringing one of the world's biggest tungsten deposits into production, with lenders understood to have been lined up to provide about £55 million ($80 million) worth of debt financing. The ASX and AIM-listed Wolf could announce the news as early as today. In the meantime, offtake talks over the Hemerdon tungsten and tin project are continuing.

• Goldphyre Resources will be hoping for some Christmas cheer tomorrow when it hits the board in one of the last floats for the year. As the name suggests, Goldphyre is in the bullion business, with assets in the Yamarna region of WA close to Gold Road Resources.

Having raised $3 million through its initial public offering, Goldphyre has a handful of targets it hopes to test early next year.

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