As the iron ore industry ponders its ‘green steel’ future, miners developing high-grade products will more easily gain the support of steelmakers and investors.
Hawsons Iron is one of these – an emerging iron ore company that saw its share price jump 18 per cent on April 13 and has experienced a 176 per cent increase across the last month.
More remarkable is the 556 per cent spike Hawsons Iron has enjoyed since late November when its share price was $0.080. The company was trading at $0.52 with a market capitalisation of $371 million at the time of writing.
This is massive and couldn’t have occurred without a credible story and a credible string of announcements.
Earlier this week, it was revealed the Australian Government had renewed the major project status (MPS) of the Hawsons Iron project in Broken Hill for another three years.
Once up and running, Hawsons Iron will produce a 70 per cent iron (Fe) product known as ‘Hawsons Supergrade’, poised to be one of the highest-grade Fe products on the seaborne market.
In a letter of approval, Federal Minister for Industry, Energy and Emissions Reduction Angus Taylor re-affirmed Hawsons Iron as a critical project of the future.
“The decision to grant major project status is based on the opportunity your project offers through supply of its high-quality magnetite product being a preferred input to the making of low emissions steel,” he said in a letter of approval.
“In addition to export opportunities and emissions reduction, the project will provide significant benefits to the Broken Hill and the South Australian port regions through job creation and skill retention.”
Hawsons Iron is also recognised by the New South Wales Government as a state significant development while the South Australia Government is also considering an application to endorse Hawsons with its own MPS.
The federal government MPS expedites Hawsons Iron’s approval process as it looks to elevate the project into production in 2024.
In the near-term, Hawsons Iron will focus on its bankable feasibility study set for release in December, which was recently expanded in February.
Hawsons Iron will scope the possibility of a potential production capacity of 20 million tonnes per annum (Mtpa), an extra 10Mtpa from the project’s 2017 prefeasibility study (PFS).