News

May 12, 2008

Atlas Iron Is On The Verge Of Becoming A World Class Iron Ore Producer

By Our Man in Oz

Not many Minesite readers get a first hand opportunity to see the latest remarkable developments in the Australian iron ore industry for themselves. So Minesite’s Man in Oz has done it for you. Last Friday, as a guest of Atlas Iron chief executive, David Flanagan, Minesite’s Man made the 1,600 kilometre trek north from his home in Perth to spend a day whizzing around the remote and rugged Pilbara region of Australia’s north-west in a lightweight helicopter, flitting from Atlas project to Atlas project. It wasn’t the first such trip undertaken by Minesite’s Man. The first one was back in the late 1960’s, when the first ore was being exported from BHP’s Mt Newman project, So, in a way, this latest visit was both a trip down memory lane and an eye-opener, because Atlas is on the verge of an astonishing burst of growth, and to seeing it up-close clearly demonstrates why the Atlas share price has soared more than six-fold from A60 cents a year ago to A$4.00 today.

In a nutshell, Atlas is potentially on the verge of becoming a world-class iron ore exporter. It will start small, but it will grow, because the Australian iron ore industry - under pressure from Chinese demand - is on fire. The big two, BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto cannot keep pace with that demand despite a rolling series of project expansions. And the big new player appearing on the horizon, Fortescue Metals Group (FMG), will also make only a modest dent in China’s insatiable appetite for...