It's a win-win situation for iron ore hopeful Golden West Resources Ltd and Yilgarn Infrastructure Ltd following a rail and port deal in the state's Mid West region.
It's a win-win situation for iron ore hopeful Golden West Resources Ltd and Yilgarn Infrastructure Ltd following a rail and port deal in the state's Mid West region.
Today Golden West announced it had signed a "Foundation Customer Agreement" with Yilgarn to use rail infrastructure, a berth and storage facilities to be built at the Oakajee deepwater port.
The first formal agreement by Yilgarn comes nearly a month after Oakajee Port and Rail Pty Ltd - backed by Murchison Metals Ltd and Mitsubishi Corp - won the tender given by the state government to build the port.
The tender process for the development of $2 billion port was a two-horse race between OPR and Yilgarn.
Despite having lost the tender for the port, Yilgarn has previously stated that is has the right to build rail lines to service various iron ore mined in the region, and reiterated that claim in today's statement.
"Yilgarn Infrastructure has the right, as announced by Planning and Infrastructure Minister Alnnah MacTiernan in her media release of October 8 and through its foundation customer and infrastructure agreements with Midwest Corporation Ltd, to build a railway to service various iron mines in the Mid West and to construct a private berth at the proposed port."
"Yilgarn Infrastructure is actively pursuing its rights to build these facilities."
In a media release issued last year, Ms MacTiernan stated that the non-successful proponent will have to right to build a subsequent berth.
Under the Golden West deal, Yilgarn will finance and build a railway connecting Golden West's Wiluna West iron ore project to the rail line, subject to government approvals.
Golden West is currently conducting a scoping study on Wiluna West.
The agreement comes just days before a Golden West shareholders meeting, which was requisitioned by Portman in a bid to replace two Golden West directors with its managing director Richard Mehan and Paul Piercy.
Portman has previously said that it was looking to place people with iron ore experience at a board level.
Over the past fortnight, Golden West has signed an iron ore offtake deal with a Chinese company and appointed former Rio Tinto executive David Rose as chief executive.
