Rinehart’s Hancock weighs $3.3 billion iron ore mine project
Hancock acquired a 51% interest in the Mt Bevan project from Legacy Iron Ore Ltd. and Hawthorn Resources.
After slashing 450 Australian coal mining jobs in June, Glencore Xstrata (LON:GLEN) is making more cuts, announcing on Tuesday that it will halt production of iron ore in Australia, Reuters reports.
The company has been exporting relatively small amounts of iron ore from its Ernest Henry copper mine in Queensland but market conditions have led it to reconsider this move.
“Falling revenue, increasing production costs and ongoing high logistics costs in getting our product from mine to market have eroded the margins in this business,” a Glencore spokeswoman told Reuters.
The announcement comes in the midst of a series of cost-cutting actions, including the shelving of a $139 million expansion of Glencore’s Cobar copper mine in New South Wales. In May, the miner also dropped plans to develop its $1 billion Balaclava Island coal terminal in Queensland.
The company is also shedding copper assets, announcing on Tuesday that it has initiated the sale of its Peruvian Las Bambas copper mine. Earlier this year Glencore entered into an agreement with Beijing’s Ministry of Commerce by which it promised to sell the site by August 2014.
Creative Commons image by: RON1EEY
