Forescue Fuels Pilbara Land Grab

Mining tenements in Western Australia's iron-ore rich Pilbara have all been snapped up in a goldrush-style land grab triggered by Andrew Forrest's Fortescue Metals Group.
Every piece of ground in the Pilbara that was prospective for minerals has either been granted or is under application, a spokeswoman for Western Australia's Department of Industry and Resources (DoIR) said. "This is typical of boom times,'' she said.

Fortescue chief financial officer Chris Catlow said that junior and mid-tier iron ore companies had scrambled to secure Pilbara landholdings. He said this had happened since Fortescue started publicly challenging Rio Tinto Ltd and BHP Billiton Ltd to open up their railways in the region to third parties. The prospect of getting ore to port and record benchmark iron ore prices had made Pilbara iron ore tenements highly sought after. "It's hard to get hold of ground,'' Mr Catlow said. "It's only come about since Fortescue initiated its activities. "Clearly, people are now only interested in looking for iron ore in the Pilbara because there is a prospect of being able to ship it out on open-access infrastructure."

Fortescue's 40,000-square-kilometre tenements are about the same size as Texas, eclipsing those of mining giants BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto, it says. Murchison Metals Ltd, which has a modest iron ore mining operation in WA's mid-west, was recently caught up in the Pilbara fever, securing 400 square kilometres of tenements between Tom Price and Paraburdoo.

Murchison managing director Trevor Matthews said the company was seeking more landholdings in the Pilbara. Mr Matthews said the company would approach private holders of tenements in the region. Budding iron ore producer Atlas Iron Ltd has amassed a sizeable chunk of the Pilbara, with 9,000 square kilometres of tenements containing direct shipping hematite ore and magnetite ore. The $1 billion company, which joins the S&P200 on July 1, aims to commence mining in August, with exports to follow in October.

At the smaller end of the mining spectrum, Warwick Resources Ltd has secured 1,700 square kilometres of Pilbara tenure for iron ore.

Source: News.com.au