EXPLORATION

Carpentaria advances Broken Hill Iron project

The Broken Hill region, noted for its world-class lead-zinc-silver mines, may get its first iron ore mine by mid 2015 if Carpentaria Exploration's project goes according to plan.

Author: Ross Louthean
Posted: Monday , 21 May 2012

BROKEN HILL - 

The opening day of the Resources & Energy Symposium in Broken Hill was told today the Hawson iron ore project, 60 kilometres from Broken Hill is back on the rails now that there are contenders to buy the 40% equity owned by BMG Pty Ltd.

Business development manager for Carpentaria Exploration, Quentin Hill, said the way has now been cleared for BMG's equity to be sold and he intimated, by citing recent project partnership deals, that a buyer could be Chinese or from the general Asian region.

The new partner, he told the conference, was "crystallising".

Hill said the blueprint was for an operation that would mine the magnetite at Hawson to produce a high grade concentrate of up to 69.9% Fe that could be railed from Broken Hill down to Port Pirie on South Australia's Spencer Gulf where it could be "smart barged" to ore carriers out in the gulf.

The concept is to produce 20 million tonnes per annum of ore for a projected operating life of 25 years.

Hill said the existing railway from Broken Hill to Port Pirie has a capacity of 13 Mtpa and owner Flinders Ports was examining a 20-30 Mtpa upgrade of the railway.

Carpentaria's portfolio also takes in a tungsten project in the Broken Hill region.