18 May 2017
Hancock Prospecting and Roy Hill are excited to announce that Executive Chairman, Mrs Gina Rinehart, and the Roy Hill project have been recognised at the prestigious Platts Global Metals Awards in London tonight, winning two awards.
Mrs Rinehart was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award for her outstanding leadership in the mining and resources sector, and for her contribution to the development of that sector throughout her adult life.
Her leadership has included founding and patronage of Australia’s annual National Mining and Related Industries Day, many speeches on behalf of the industry and quarterly contributions to Australia’s Resources and Investment Magazine publication, founding and chair of Australians for Northern Development and Economic Vision (ANDEV), and two books, the most recent one called “From Red Tape to Red Carpet.”
Roy Hill, of which Mrs Rinehart is Executive Chair, was also recognised, winning the Rising Star Company Award for its spirit, milestones and impressive achievements as a largely Greenfield mega mine.
Accepting the Lifetime Achievement Award in London, Mrs Rinehart said she was very delighted to be acknowledged for a lifetime’s commitment and dedication to the mining and resources industry, most recently culminating in the highly successful delivery of the USD$10 billion Roy Hill iron ore project.
“The mining and resources industry with its many related industries is, I believe, a very important contributor to our country, and helps to maintain and improve living standards, so it means a lot to me to be recognised by my peers at these internationally renowned prestigious awards,” Mrs Rinehart said.
“There are many people who support me with these endeavours, especially Tad Watroba and my executives and my other hard-working, long-term and dedicated staff. We are also proud of our endeavours over decades at Hope Downs, three major mines were built there with our more recent partners, Rio Tinto, and a fourth is under development.”
Speaking following Roy Hill’s rising star win, Mrs Rinehart said of the project “we started very small, with very little money to spend, and worked hard to explore, finding the deposits which now form the Roy Hill operations, tenements another company had held for a long time, but chose to drop, believing of negligible value. Over many years we studied and progressed towards development despite all the thousands of government approvals permits and licences and other significant risks and roadblocks placed in front of us.”
“Roy Hill has achieved significant milestones – we are ramping up to be Australia’s single largest iron ore mine, we are the fastest to achieve shipment of 35 million tonnes and while doing so, maintained an above industry average safety record and female participation rate. We secured the world’s largest debt funding package for a mainly Greenfields land-based mining project from 19 of the largest banks in the world and five Export Credit Agencies, we use some of the world’s largest equipment in the mining industry, and Roy Hill marked the largest ever commercial deal between Australia and South Korea,” Gina Rinehart said.
“It has been a mammoth team effort to successfully manage the project from bankable feasibility to construction and ultimately to project operation and ramp up. Huge thanks to our partners, executives and every person who has contributed.”
ROY HILL RISING STAR WIN SPEECH
My partners, Marubeni, POSCO, together with ourselves at Hancock, are delighted to accept this prestigious award for Roy Hill. Roy Hill at 55 million tonnes per annum is the single largest iron ore mine in Australia. While other iron ore producers ship more than 55, they do that as a combination of production from multiple mines. The scale of effort and inputs on which Roy Hill has been built make it a truly mega project.
The total amount of construction steel used for Roy Hill construction would be sufficient to build more than 20 Eiffel Towers. The number of miles travelled by charter flights between Perth and minesite during the construction project equal three return trips to the moon! To make it possible to a business of this size, complexity, quality ahead of schedule, under budget requires dedication, commitment, leadership of extraordinary nature. Huge thanks to every person who contributed, and thank you again for this award.
LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD WIN SPEECH
Good evening, distinguished guests and friends. It is a great privilege and pleasure to be with you all tonight, here in London. London is thousands of miles away from where I grew up in the rugged north of West Australia, surrounded by heat, and dust, and flies, cattle and a heck of a lot of iron ore!
These have contributed to the rather unique Australian life that I have had, a wonderful life with my very special parents, Hope and Lang Hancock, and importantly have contributed to our country and it’s standards of living. I would sincerely like to thank Platts for this prestigious lifetime award, which will have a place of honour in my heart and back in west Australia. Thank you.
