FerrAus is hoping to still manage to negotiate a haulage deal with BHP Billiton. The junior iron ore mining company said that its talks with the mining giant have not broken down. The company said that reports that claimed this were incorrect in a number of respects.
As per the company the negotiations are on with BHP Iron Ore to determine the terms of a confidentiality agreement. The company statement to the Australian Securities Exchange mentioned that these negotiations are ongoing and once completed will enable negotiations for a rail haulage agreement to be finalised.
The response from FerrAus comes on the heels of an article in a newspaper that said that the two weeks of negotiations between the two mining companies had failed to reach any compromise. This was triggered by a FerrAus spokesman telling the press that negotiations with BHP were not progressing.
Since the company has iron ore tenements in the Pilbara region it needs the use of railway lines to get its produce into the ports for shipping. This is what they hope to achieve by using the BHP Billiton cargo rail lines.