Western Australia’s environment minister Donna Faragher has given environmental approval to Pilbara junior miner Aurox Resources’ 100%-owned iron ore project, located midway between Karratha and Port Hedland.
Aurox plans to mine and process up to 10.1 mtpa of magnetite ore over a 15 year mine life and has secured export capacity through Port Hedland Port Authority’s new common-user berth at Utah Point on Finucane Island on the western side of the Inner Harbour. Faragher set stringent conditions on conserving flora and vegetation, protecting the quality of surface and groundwater and ensuring site rehabilitation after the closure of the mine.
The State Government is focusing on improving approvals processes so that WA can ‘continue to attract investment in development and key industries while maintaining high standards of environmental protection.’
The Environmental Protection Authority has recently conducted a review of Environmental Impact Assessments and soon afterwards gave long-awaited conditional approval for plans by Gindalbie Metals to mine iron ore at its Karara magnetite project east of Geraldton.
The A$1.8B project will deliver some 10 mt of iron products from 2010, comprising 8 mtpa of high grade magnetite concentrate and blast furnace quality pellets and 2 mtpa of direct shipping hematite ore. The EPA said that with the protection of a portion of Mungada Ridge in Class A nature reserve and with the implementation of ministerial conditions, development of the Karara proposal could go ahead. The authority also gave conditional approval for the development of the neighbouring Blue Hills North deposit, part of the Mungana project, which is to be developed in conjunction with Karara.
Coincidentally or otherwise the approval came just after Gindalbie Metals chairman George Jones lambasted the EPA’s three-and-a-half-year delay an embarrassment to the company, state and country.
Karara is a joint venture development between Gindalbie and Chinese steel producer AnSteel, which is awaiting Federal Government approval to invest a further A$162.1M to boost its stake in Gindalbie from 12.6% to 36.3%.
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