Forrest swipes at his critics

摘要

If there's one thing Andrew Forrest seems to enjoy it's a good corporate stoush. And this is probably a good thing, given the colourful West Australian-born mining entrepreneur's recent adventures as he goes about developing another iron ore presence in WA's Pilbara. Before Ms appearance at this year's RIU Sydney Resources Round-up Conference Forrest had received something of a media battering regarding his bindingon-binding deals with the Chinese, his company's (Fortescue Metals Group Ltd) reporting of its mineral holdings to the ASX, as well as the junior's apparent failure to gain third party access to the publicly-listed BHP Billiton rail line between the Pilbara towns of Newman and Port Hedland. It was no surprise, then, when the FMG boss adopted something of a defiant stance as he walked to the podium during May. "I can honestly say to you that I feel very, very relaxed standing up in front of you," Forrest said before launching into the company's roadshow presentation. oldstar Resources NL is confident of establishing I a trial mining operation for its Walhalla gold project in Victoria within the next 12 months. The West Perth-based junior is also planning to have an initial 50,000 ounce per annum operation in place within the next 18 months to two years. During his Sydney presentation, Goldstar managing director Andrew King said the company believed it had effectively re-opened the historic Walhalla goldfield, of which it holds 217 square kilometres' worth of prospective real estate. The junior has spent the last 12 months focusing on the Cohen's Shoot, which in its day (1862-1914) yielded 1.5 million oz from 1.4 Mt of ore and covers 1 sq km. "The thing to remember about Walhalla is apart from the Cohen's mine or reef, nothing was mined below the water table," Ring said.