Iron Forged

Iron Forged

Junior to Open Up South Australia's Iron Ore Potential Following Chinese Deal

Junior to open up South Australia's iron ore potential following Chinese deal

The gloomy December mood for Australian exploration juniors on both the commodity price and funding front received a ray of sunshine through a big deal struck between Centrex Metals and China's third largest steelmaker, Wuhan Iron & Steel (Group) Co.

The chairman of Adelaide-based Centrex Metals (ASX: CXM) , David Lindh described the deal announced today with Wuhan Iron & Steel (WISCO) as "a company maker" - with an injection of capital for the junior of $A180 million ($US1226.7 M) to earn a half share in five groups of magnetite licences on South Australia's Eyre Peninsula.

WISCO will also take a strategic 15% stake in Centrex at an additional cost of $A9.7 M ($US6.83 M) with the steelmaker offered a board position.

Managing director Gerard Anderson told journalists in a telephone conference that the once all necessary government consents are cleared for both parties and a first tranche payment of $A59.5 M ($US41.9 M) - expected in March next year - to be followed by a further $A30 M ($US21.1 M) a year later. These payments, Anderson said, would be unconditional.

A further $A90 M ($US63.4 M) will be paid in four progressive but equal tranches subject to the new joint venture to be set up between the two companies achieving inferred resource definition targets across the projects of 1.25 billion tonnes up to a final targeted 2 Bt

Anderson said discussions with Wuhan began in mid 2008 and since then Centrex people made two trips to China(cnmining) and teams from Wuhan visited the Eyre Peninsula also twice. Factors that attracted Wuhan included that all the deposits in the joint venture are close to the coast and detailed testing had shown the magnetite to be an ideal coarse ore to produce a concentrate that suited Wuhan's steelmaking operations. Unlike Western Australia's Pilbara, rail or other ore transport will not be a daunting cost.

Anderson said that also helping forge the deal was the fact that Chnia's Yuan currency has appreciated about 30% against the $A in the past few months.

Wuhan was also impressed with the fact that Centrex had secured an area 20 kilometres north of Tumby Bay called Sheep Hill which was found to be an ideal site to develop a deepwater port cabable of taking Cape-size (>160,000 deadweight tonne) vessels for bulk shipping -- something South Australia lacks.

The target was to begin shipping from 2012-13 at the rate of between 5 Mt per annum to 10 Mtpa and for Sheep Hill to have an overall shipping capacity of about 50 Mtpa.

Anderson told Mineweb that the proposed Sheep Hill port would be owned by the joint venture though it was possible a third party could be brought into the port project, as Centrex would be amenable to this facility being opened up for otheriron ore, magnetite, coal, base metals projects and possibly for exporting agriculture from Eyre Peninsula.

This, he said, would be a catalyst for opening up the mineral wealth and assisting agriculture on Eyre Peninsula. In iron ore and magnetite terms this large slice of Eyre Peninsula was ignored and sometimes derided as having potential. Anderson said the detractors should understand history for some of Australia's first iron ore mines were developed by BHP in the Middleback Ranges on the north-east Eyre Peninsula and OneSteel Ltd (ASX: OST) was continuing operations utilising predominantly magnetite ore.

In the future the joint venture will look at developing a pellet plant near the port and Anderson said the big hurdle for this would be obtaining cheap energy.

Today's news did not budge Centrex' share price from A22.5 cents, though since mid November it has climbed 50%, something many other Australian iron ore and magnetite juniors would envy.

Another string to Centrex' development bow is the Wilgerup iron ore project close to Port Lincoln on the base of Eyre Peninsula. This is excluded from the joint venture and Anderson said Centrex has already negotiated to ship out Wilgerup ore from Pt Lincoln.

WISCO now has a capcity of 30 Mtpa of steel and operates mainly in Wuhan in the central China province of Hubei. It operates an integrated supply chain comprising mining, coking, sintering, pelletising, iron making, steel making and rolling operations.

WISCO's assets were valued at 118 billion RMB (A$26 billion) in 2007. WISCO has a 48.3% stake in Kunming Iron and Steel Corporation in Yunnan province, and an 80% interest in the Guangxi Iron & Steel Group which currently has approval to construct a new 10 Mtpa steel plant in the Guangxi port of Fangchenggang, with further plans to expand the facility to 50 Mtpa by 2011.

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