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Australia’s BlueScope Steel is boosting shipping capacity at its ironsand site at Taharoa.
The ASX-listed company says it will introduce a 175,000 tonne slurry loading vessel at the site south of Kawhia, which has been leased since 1972 from Maori owners, the Taharoa C Incorporation.
It also intends to spend A$50 million by 2018 on mining, processing and ship loading equipment.
This will raise capacity to 4 million tonnes a year by 2016, which the company expects to sustain for 15 years.
Chief executive Paul O’Malley says while its New Zealand operations make up only 8 percent of the company’s A$681 million profits last year, the low cost of extraction makes the iron sands operations a valuable part of BlueScope’s business portfolio.
Meanwhile, south Taranaki iwi are among those objecting to West Australian company Trans-Tasman Resources’ plans to extract between 4 million and 5 million tonnes a year of ironsand from a 65.76 square kilometre area off the North Island coast, west of Patea.
The Environmental Protection Authority has extended the deadline for submissions until January 28 because it failed to post information about the submission process on its website before the earlier deadline expired.
Copyright © 2013, UMA Broadcasting Ltd
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