A giant iron ore processing plant on the North-West Coast of Tasmania remains in the offing despite the global financial crisis.
Iron ore miner and pellet manufacturer Grange Resources two weeks ago met the State Government to discuss its expansion plans.
Grange Resources managing director Russell Clark said the company remained keen to build a new pellet-making facility at Port Latta, near Stanley, up to four times larger than the present plant.
Resources Minister David Llewellyn told Parliament yesterday he had been in recent discussions with Grange Resources about its prospects for a new facility on the Port Latta industrial estate next to its existing plant and export wharf.
Grange Resources owns the Savage River iron ore mine in Tasmania's far West, which is linked to its magnetite pellet plant at Port Latta by a slurry pipeline through the Tarkine wilderness area.
"We went to pay our dues to the Minister and the Treasurer [Michael Aird] the week before last and to tell them that our intent is to continue running our Tasmanian business as hard as we can," Mr Clark said.
"What we said to them was that when the world economy comes good, we would have every potential to build a new pellet plant somewhere and that we liked the position here in Tassie."
Mr Clark said he had wanted to gauge the Tasmanian Government's interest in the $1.5 billion-plus new pellet-making plant, as well as to flag with the Government that alternative sites overseas were also in the mix.
The Malaysian Government has offered Grange Resources a 10-year tax-free holiday if it establishes the pellet plant in Malaysia.
"But the Treasurer made it very clear he couldn't give us any tax cuts -- he said his GST revenue was already down by $161 million or something like that," Mr Clark said.
Another reason for the Grange Resources meeting, Mr Clark said, was that the company had become aware of the recent push by the Tasmanian Government to divert vast amounts of water from West Coast rivers such as the Pieman and Arthur to irrigate central and eastern farming areas.
Mr Clark said he also had wanted to remind the Government that any of its pellet-making expansion plans were contingent on large amounts of water being readily available.
Grange Resources estimates it may need six gigalitres or 6 billion litres of water annually if it expands its pellet production capacity from 2.7 million tonnes a year to 10 million tonnes.
Source: Tasmania Mercury
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