Qantas has been selected by Gina Rinehart’s Roy Hill Holdings to provide charter-air services for the $10 billion Pilbara mining project, which requires completion of a major debt funding package before full-scale construction gets underway.
The national carrier said it would begin charter operations on August 13, initialy with three return flights a week to the project's completed air strip.
The flights will be operated by Qantas subsidiary Network Aviation.
Qantas domestic chief executive Lyell Strambi said he looked forward to working with the Roy Hill team.
Mr Strambi described the deal as an important milestone in the airline’s efforts to expand its regional and charter services.
“The agreement demonstrates Qantas’ strength in the fly-in, fly-out business and affirms our strategy of investing and expanding our charter operations through Network Aviation,” Mr Strambi said.
Roy Hill executive Darryl Hockey said Qantas was selected for its proven track record in safety and reliability.
“Over the project construction period it is expected that 8,500 skilled worker positions will be utilised by sub-contractors, and the new charter deal will ensure the right people are available at the right time,” he said.
“Once production begins in 2015, safe and dependable air services will be critical to the ongoing efficiency and productivity of the Roy Hill operations.”
Early works at Roy Hill are under way, with construction on a 2,000-bed workers village ongoing and a series of engineering and construction contracts already let.
A comprehensive debt funding package is expected to be announced in coming weeks.
The FIFO contract follows news last week that Japanese group Marubeni, already a 12.5 per cent shareholder in Roy Hill Holdings, had bought out the 2.5 per cent stake held by Korea's STX Corporation.
The majority shareholder is Mrs Rinehart's famiy company Hancock Prospecting, with 70 per cent, while Korean steel maker POSCO has a 12.5 per cent stake and China Steel Corp holds 2.5 per cent.
It also follows a report in 'The West Australian' today that the shareholders have injected $200 million of additional equity into the project.
