G'day Mac,AV specifically said that although they had previously...

G'day Mac,

AV specifically said that although they had previously been searching for value investments, they had now put the cue in the rack as the cash is simply too valuable and they wanted to prioritise the current projects. The aim is to preserve that cash and AV was very clear in stating that he wants to run a very lean operation in the current environment.

Regarding additional tenements I had the chance to speak with several people about that and the feeling was that yes they definitely want more prospective land. However the good land is tightly held and anything even slightly promising had been snapped up. The feeling is that all of the "low hanging fruit" has been claimed. Manohar is chomping at the bit to get something new to explore and I even asked about Mardie - he felt there was certainly magnetite but certainly no DSO at either Mardie or Maitland. I jokingly asked him about developing the salt resource at Mardie and was told "hey don't laugh, we are looking at everything and it's an option."

I also asked about Portland and it seems like there are water issues there so it's been placed on the back-burner.

Regarding the truck & barge project, they sound very serious to me mate and I imagine the plan is to prove it can be done via the PFS, get all of the necessary approvals and then farm it out. If the profit margins are healthy I imagine IOH could skim $10 p/t and at 8mtpa that works fairly well with the possibility of ramping up to 16mtpa eventually using a second barge. It all depends on that PFS and the forecast cash costs p/t if they are low enough the JV partners will come running and IOH can sit back with their 22 employees & milk it nicely.