Australian billionaire Gina Rinehart's Roy Hill iron ore project will start construction on its Australian mine in mid-2013, later than expected because the finalization of the financing package extends to next year, according to media reports. The mine is located in the Chichester Range of the Pilbara region of Western Australia.
The project aims to produce 55 million mt per year on iron ore, starting from late 2014. The funding talks took longer than expected because of the size of the project including construction of a mine, railway and port rather than just expanding an existing mine.
As SteelOrbis previously reported, in April this year Taiwan's largest steelmaker China Steel Corporation (CSC) bought a 2.5 percent stake in the Roy Hill iron ore project from South Korean steel producer POSCO.
The project is 70 percent owned by Rinehart's Hancock Prospecting, and 30 percent owned by a consortium led by POSCO, with Japanese trading company Marubeni, South Korea-based STX Corp. and Taiwan's CSC.