Increasing your volume while getting your costs down is what...

Increasing your volume while getting your costs down is what it's all about in the volatile & competitive Iron Ore game.

FMG still thrives with it's low-grade product because it's done both very well.

The worlds biggest IO miner, Brazil's Vale has the volume (& the quality) but has to compete with RIO & BHP's shipping cost advantage due to the Pilbara being much closer to China.

Their answer is to build extra big ships that can transport 400,000 tonnes.

http://blog.argusmedia.com/valemaxes-could-spell-capesize-markets-doom/#more-2333

The take-out from this article for CIA is that the Capesize carriers (150,000 - 200.000t) will be in surplus which should bring shipping costs down for CIA.

With the BFS showing Total CFR cash cost of US$53 of which Ocean freight is US$19 (that's 35% of total costs) then any reduction in shipping costs will make quite a difference as the planned Bloom Lake phase 2 ramp-up comes into focus in the near future!

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