QR National is evaluating an independent, multi-party railway to connect iron ore mines in the East Pilbara to Port Hedland.
QR National is evaluating the development of standard-gauge railway to be designed as a staged development to be progressively expanded to meet shipping allocations of customers at Port Hedland Port. Operation of the initial stages could commence as early as 2015.
“QR National believes the Pilbara offers one of our Company’s most outstanding growth opportunities where we can leverage existing capability in heavy-haul rail,” said QR National
Executive Vice President Strategy and Business Development, Ken Lewsey.
“We’ve been constructing and operating multi-user heavy-haul railways in Queensland’s coalfields for decades. This coal network has current capacity for 250 million tonnes per annum, potentially growing to 300 mtpa by 2015.
“This capability is readily transferrable to the Pilbara where a number of independent miners are seeking rail transport solutions.
“The value of an independent railway is that we can achieve the economies of scale by aggregating the tonnages of multiple parties, as well as delivering efficiency gains across a co-ordinated supply chain.”
QR National has signed an Agreement with Atlas Iron to jointly study a proposal to service iron ore deposits of Atlas and other miners in the first stage of the proposed infrastructure development.
Under this proposal, the parties would work towards Atlas becoming a cornerstone user of the infrastructure. However the railway would be developed on the basis of other miners connecting and accessing the railway through staged development.
