Author: yinghui

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.

报告显示矿产活动驱动着工业投资

市场情报公司 Timetric 建筑情报中心 （Timetric Construction Intelligence Center）近日的一份报告揭示了亚洲工业板块项目超过1万亿美元的投资计划。领头的是印度，该国制定了价值4110亿美元的计划。

该报告同时发现，中国和印度尼西亚也有巨大的投资水平，两国分别有2000亿美元和1240亿美元的开发计划。

其它新兴国家，如越南等，也有正面的结果。越南制定了价值达560亿美元的工业建筑项目。

采矿业是澳大利亚的核心聚焦，因为金属和物料加工工厂带来了价值将近370亿美元的工程，为该板块价值的一半。

该研究小组的结果表明，所研究的15个国家所进行的1.08万亿美元的工业项目，金属和物料生产工厂板块占主导地位，该板块拥有价值4460亿美元的项目，紧随其后的是制造工厂板块，拥有价值3140亿美元的项目。

在该报告的清单上，价值最高的项目是价值500亿美元的越南万安经济区（Vung Ang Economic Zone）。该项目包括重要的河静（ Ha-Tinh）钢铁厂和山阳港（ Son Duong Port）。

Timetric CIC 经理 Neil Martin 称，“发达的亚太经济体倾向于在工业建筑中投资更多，而该地区工业化程度较低的国家在工业建筑方面显示出最大增长，尽管起点较低。

“我们估计到2019年，像越南、印尼、蒙古和土库曼斯坦等国的增长预计将有6%或更高。这已经在采矿、加工或制造业方面的投资中显现出来了。这些领域的投资将推动这些发展中的经济体的发展。”

The Northern Territory’s last operating iron ore mine has ground to a halt, wrapping up what has been a disastrous six months for the sector in the Top End.

After months of speculation, the Frances Creek mine near Pine Creek has now stopped production, joining Sherwin Iron and Western Desert Resources which went into voluntary administration last year.

Terry O’Connor, from the Darwin Port Corporation, said the collapse of the Territory’s iron ore sector was a big blow for the port.

“The iron ore trade was our biggest customer in terms of return to the port and its [collapse, has left] a significant hole in our budget,” he said.

“Our understanding, at this stage, is that the plan is to finish up the operation at Frances Creek, [but] they still believe there’s a chance they may recommence [mining] at some stage in 12 months or so.

“[However] our feeling is, it’ll take a significant amount of time to remobilise and get everything to happen, so we certainly don’t expect to see any new exports of iron ore out of Frances Creek before this time next year or even 18 months at the earliest.

“We’d like to think they’ll come back. But it’s demand driven, we understand that. There’s always peaks and troughs and this is a trough at the moment.”

AUDIO: Terry O’Connor says the collapse of NT iron ore projects will leave a hole in the Darwin Port’s budget (ABC Rural)
Mr O’Connor said the last loads of iron ore from Frances Creek were delivered to the port in late December.

He said there were about 250,000 tonnes stockpiled at the port, to be exported over the coming months.

From a workforce of over 300, it is understood there are now just 20 workers left at the Frances Creek project and that number will be reduced again in the coming weeks.

The plunging iron ore price, which sparked problems for all three Top End iron mines, has dipped below $US65 a tonne, its lowest point since 2009.

Mining town of Pine Creek suffering

Ray Wooldridge has lived in the mining town of Pine Creek since 1991 and has seen plenty of ups and downs.

He said the mothballing of Territory Iron’s Frances Creek project has hit the town hard.

“If you take a workforce of 300 people out of a town of about 600, it has a dramatic effect,” he said.

“Most of the people [who worked at the mine] have gone, there’s been fire sales and those who had housing or were renting have sold up and moved on.

“There’s quite a few empty houses in town now.”

The opening hours of many businesses in Pine Creek have been reduced and one of the licensed premises has decided to close for the wet season because there are so few people in town.

ABC Rural visited one bar at 6 o’clock on a Saturday, which was serving eight patrons.

“It’s getting very, very quiet” said the barmaid.

AUDIO: Ray Wooldridge from Pine Creek says the town is doing it tough (ABC Rural)
The planned shutdown of the Frances Creek iron ore mine was first reported by ABC Rural in July 2014.

The mining company, Territory Iron, has still not offered up anyone for a comment.

Hughes Drilling has won a contract for overburden drilling services at BHP’s Mt Arthur coal mine.

The contract is only a short term agreement.

It will run C-750 REICHdrill rigs on site.

This win comes just a day after Hughes won a similar contract for overburden removal at Glencore’s Collinsville coal mine.