some positive news for the area.

http://www.smh.com.au/business/jupiter-eyes-opportunity-in-mount-ida-20110627-1gnea.html



FORMER BHP Billiton chief executive Brian Gilbertson is planning a lead role for Jupiter Mines in the development of the abundant magnetite resources of Western Australia's central Yilgarn region.

Jupiter yesterday pushed the button on a feasibility study into the planned $1.6 billion development of its Mount Ida magnetite project as an eventual 10 million tonne-a-year producer of the iron ore product.

This follows the uncertainty created last week over the future of the $6 billion Murchison Metals/Mitsubishi Oakajee rail and port infrastructure project, which was meant to lead to the opening up of WA's midwest iron ore region. Murchison said yesterday it was looking at bringing in Chinese interests to help fund Oakajee.

Advertisement: Story continues below Mr Gilbertson, Jupiter's chairman, said the central Yilgarn had a competitive advantage over the mid-west region in that Mount Ida would be able to leverage off existing rail and port assets.

''When you have the opportunity to expand on infrastructure in brownfields mode, that's a very big advantage to having to build it in a greenfields mode,'' Mr Gilbertson said. A development of Mount Ida would hook into an existing rail line at Menzies, which would need to be upgraded.

The rail line runs south to Esperance, the export port for 9 million tonnes of direct-shipping iron ore produced by US group Cliffs Natural Resources at the Koolyanobbing operation, 50 kilometres south of Southern Cross.

Jupiter managing director Richard Mehan, formerly chief executive of Asia Pacific for Cliffs, said the company believed the government-owned Esperance port was ''very much an expandable hub''.

''I think the opportunities to expand that beyond its nominal 10 million tonnes a year to something around 30 to 40 million tonnes a year is something that is firmly achievable,'' Mr Mehan said.

Mr Gilbertson said Jupiter's intention was to fund the project itself but that it had received ''expressions of interest from other parties - end users - who wish to participate in it''.

Mr Gilbertson left BHP abruptly in early 2003 after a showdown with its then chairman, Don Argus, over his aggressive growth ambitions for the company. His ambitions for Jupiter envisage the creation of a global supplier of raw materials to the steel industry.

That takes in iron ore, manganese and coking coal. The group is close to becoming a major manganese producer from its 49.9 per cent Tshipi project in South Africa and it remains on the lookout for a coking coal project.

ASX-listed Jupiter is controlled by Mr Gilberton's privately held Pallinghurst Resources and a group of ''co-investors'', which include Korean steel giant Posco, Investec and AMCI.

''Pallinghurst is prepared to commit substantial capital sums to the port and rail infrastructure in order to get this project [Mount Ida] up and running,'' Mr Gilbertson said.



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