11:13 AEST Nov 14, 2011 ABN Newswire (C) 2004-2011 Asia Business News PL. All Rights Reserved.
Perth, Australia (ABN Newswire) - Iron Road Limited (ASX:IRD) releases the following Chairman's address at 2011 Annual General Meeting.
Welcome ladies and gentlemen to the Iron Road Limited Annual General Meeting for 2011. As I am instructed that there is a quorum present, I would now like to formally declare the meeting open.
I am your Chairman, Julian Gosse. With me here today from Iron Road are:
- Your Board members - Mr Jerry Ellis, Mr Ian Hume, Mr Matthew Keegan and your Managing Director Mr Andrew Stocks.
- Also present are your General Manager Mr Larry Ingle and Company Secretary Mr Graham Anderson.
A representative of our auditor BDO, Louise Worsley will be available to discuss any questions from shareholders about the accounts.
Hopefully most of the Board here today will be familiar to you, although we did welcome Jerry as a new Board member this year. Jerry has had an outstanding career, most notably with BHP (ASX:BHP) and with a succession of very senior board positions and I am very pleased to welcome him to his first AGM for Iron Road.
Before we move to the formal business of the meeting and Andrew Stocks' presentation, I would like to say a few words.
This year our company has achieved a tremendous milestone with the delivery of the Prefeasibility Study for the Central Eyre Iron Project. The study established that a very large scale operation is viable, with completive operating and capital costs. I will leave it to Andrew to lay out the specific details in his presentation, but shareholders should be pleased that we hold a project with an indicated net present value of just over one billion dollars with reasonable scope to grow too much more, potentially in excess of two or three billion dollars.
We believe that the Central Eyre Iron Project has now emerged as one of Australia's leading magnetite developments.
The company will not rest on its laurels - the PFS established a number of areas of potential improvement which we are now pursuing. Again, I will leave it to Andrew to lay out the specifics but we are working across further potential resource upgrades, process improvements and potentially superior transport arrangements.
As a result of the PFS outcomes, the Board has authorised the company to begin the formal search for a development partner to bring aboard the large corporate partner we need to progress the CEIP towards construction and ultimately production. The search to date proceeds well, with a number of potential partners engaged in the process. This is something we all look forward to providing further updates on as the process progresses. Potentially, bringing on board a development partner will be one of the most significant events in the life of the company to date.
Continuing to look ahead to the next year, the company is in the early stages of our Definitive Feasibility Study.
Drilling of course remains an ongoing proposition for Iron Road, as we increase the resource base at CEIP.
During the year we reached just over 1 billion tonnes of resources at Murphy South, drilling of the western limb is complete and resource modelling is about to commence. I am very much looking forward to more resource being added in the year ahead.
Of course, shareholders can hardly have failed to have noticed our share price performance in recent months.
Certainly the Board feels that the company has a higher intrinsic value than current market prices would suggest, particularly given the strategic nature of our assets. We continue to engage with market participants with a view to ultimately increasing buying interest in our company. We have a number of milestones ahead for the year which will provide scope for a potential re-rating of Iron Road by the market.
With that, I would like to again thank our shareholders, partners and staff for achieving the significant results we have this year and their ongoing support.
I'd now like to move to the formal business of the meeting.
About Iron Road Limited:
Iron Road Limited (ASX:IRD) is an Australia-based company. The Company is engaged in exploration and evaluation of its iron ore ground holdings. Its projects include the Central Eyre Iron project, Gawler Iron project and Windarling Iron project. The Central Eyre Iron Project consists of three distinct prospects: Warramboo, Kopi and Hambidge. The Company focuses on establishing a resource inventory that underpins a 5 to 10 metric tons per annum (Mtpa) magnetite export operation. It contains magnetite-bearing gneiss units with a cumulative strike length. Gawler Iron project includes over ten areas of known iron occurrences, including the Mt Christie deposit. A total of 252 in-situ rock chip and grab samples from 10 localities at the West Gawler project returned an average grade of 53.4% Fe. The Company developed a stage plan of ground work on Windarling project.
Source:
Iron Road Limited
Contact:
Iron Road Limited
Tel: +61-8-9200-6020
http://www.ironroadlimited.com.au