On January 21, Australian iron ore producer Atlas Iron Limited (Atlas) announced that its resource inventory of direct shipping ore has doubled to 186.6 million mt of 56.6 percent iron content, paving the way for planned increases in production and sales revenue over the next three years.
According to the company announcement, the revised direct shipping ore resource estimate represents an increase of 97 percent from the figures published in July 2009 and a rise of 230 percent from this time last year.
"Atlas has worked extremely hard in the field to grow our resource base during 2009, with 100,000 m drilled for the year. That has been reflected in this result, with a 49 percent increase in resources on Atlas' projects plus the additional 46 million mt coming from the recent merger with Warwick Resources," commented Atlas managing director David Flanagan.
"This is an excellent result for a company of Atlas' size during one of the worst economic downturns in the past 50 years. This resource base sets up the company to achieve its key goals of growing exports to an annual rate of 6 million mt this year, rising to 12 million mt in 2012." Mr. Flanagan added.