JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – The board of iron-ore junior BC Iron has approved a new business plan, which will focus the company’s efforts on the Bucklands mine-to-port development, while it is considering its options regarding the suspended Nullagine joint venture (JV) in Western Australia.
BC Iron, which posted an A$80-million net loss for the 2016 financial year ended June 30, said on Monday it was assessing its strategic options in relation to Nullagine, which included a potential sale of its interest or a restart of operations.
Site activities at Nullagine, which BC Iron operates in a JV with Fortescue Metals, were progressively suspended in December and January, with the JV sending its final shipment off in early March.
Subsequent to the suspension, BC Iron has managed to reduce Nullagine’s suspension costs, with holding costs expected to average A$0.15-million a month.
For the year, Nullagine shipped 2.7-million wet metric tonnes, of which BC Iron’s share was 2-million wet metric tonnes. Coupled with the ore shipped from the Iron Valley mine, BC Iron recorded record iron-ore sales of 8.5-million wet metric tonnes in the year.
The Iron Valley mine, which is being operated by Mineral Resources under an iron-ore sales agreement with BC Iron, shipped 6.5-million wet metric tons in the financial year.
Meanwhile, the Bucklands project contemplates an eight-million-tonne-a-year operation with a mine life of 15 years, consisting of a mine at Bungaroo South and an independent infrastructure solution that comprises a 200 km private haul road and a multi-user transshipment port facility at Cape Preston East with a capacity of up to 20-million tonnes a year.
BC Iron views Bucklands as a strategic project for the company.