The Nullagine Joint Venture (NJV) is an unincorporated 75:25 joint venture between BC Iron and Fortescue Metals Group (Fortescue), which is located approximately 150km north of Newman in the Pilbara region of Western Australia.
The NJV is a producing iron ore mine with the capacity to export up to 6Mtpa of product. BC Iron is the operator and manager of the joint venture and Fortescue facilitates the export of iron ore via both its rail and port infrastructure, and the provision of marketing services.
Nullagine Joint Venture location
Iron mineralisation occurs in channel iron deposits, which present as flat-top hills or ‘mesas’. The NJV contains an extensive number of mesas, shown in orange above. The current NJV mine plan includes 12 mesas across four mining areas; Outcamp (1-5), Warrigal (1-4), Bonnie East (1) and Coongan (1 and 2).
Ore is mined using surface miners and then processed via a simple dry crushing and screening method to produce Bonnie Fines, a direct shipping ore (DSO) fines product. The Bonnie Fines product is transported approximately 60km from the NJV mine site to Fortescue’s Christmas Creek rail loadout facility via a private bitumen haul road, utilising 400 tonne payload Powertrans Pit Hauler rigs. At Christmas Creek, Bonnie Fines is loaded onto trains and transported approximately 300km to Fortescue’s Herb Elliot Port at Port Hedland, where it is loaded onto capesize vessels and exported to customers overseas.
Bonnie Fines has an iron grade of 56-57% Fe, but has a loss on ignition of approximately 12% which produces a high calcined iron grade after sintering. It also has low impurities, particularly phosphorus and silica. These properties make it a highly-sought after sinter feed.
During FY2014, the NJV exported 5.79M wmt1 (BC Iron share 4.30M wmt) at free-on-board (FOB) C1 cash operating costs of $52 per wmt. As at 30 June 2014, the NJV has a remaining mine life of 5-6 years at an average waste to ore ratio of 1.3:1.
BC Iron is assessing mine life extensions at the NJV via the beneficiation of low grade material (50-55% Fe) into a saleable product. The initial phase of this work has been completed, which culminated in BC Iron reporting an Ore Reserve estimate for beneficiated shipping ore (“BSO”) of 3.9Mt at 54.2% Fe (after yield adjustment). This estimate only consider low grade at existing stockpiles and within the current DSO pit designs. Further work is required to evaluate regional mesas which are not in the current mine plan.
BC Iron leans on contractors for cost savings
BC Iron is looking to renegotiate the terms of several of its workforce contracts in order to save money amid the weak price of iron ore.
BC made the announcement as part of its December quarter results.
At Iron Valley, the agreement with Mineral Resources Limited is being varied to ensure the company can implement initiatives aimed at securing the project’s long-term viability.
Meanwhile, the Nullagine mine is also going out to tender in the hope of securing cost savings.
“The next round of material savings will come in our retendering of existing contracts,” CEO Morgan Bell said.
“We’re expecting a reduction in the overall cost of mining and potentially haulage.”
Nullagine mine, a joint venture with FMG, cut jobs in December in order to deal with the falling price of iron ore.
The price of the commodity hit fresh five-year lows last week of $USS63 a tonne.
BC Iron managed to save $2-3 per wet metric tonne during the quarter, with the company revising its full-year cash cost guidance down to $47-51/wmt.
Nullagine mine ramped up production to its 6 million tonnes per annum run-rate in the December quarter following an operational slow-down in the September quarter.
The mine shipped 1.38wmt of Bonnie Fines for an average price of $60 per tonne.
The new Iron Valley mine shipped a total of 0.79M dmt in the quarter.
BC Iron’s cash balance was $110.1 million as at 31 December 2014.
Ball said the miner would continue to focus on operational performance, productivity and costs in order to make it through the iron ore slump.
“In a really tough in environment we’re all doing a really good job and keeping on punching,” Ball said.
Last year, company announced three non-executive directors resigned with the remaining directors taking a 10 per cent pay cut.