Speaking at the Global Iron Ore & Steel Forecast Conference in Perth yesterday, Roy Hill Holdings CEO Barry Fitzgerald said the latest progress at the project was the mobilisation this week of the mining team.

“They’re mobilising and we’re now about to start the commencement of the pit development,” he said.

First ore on ship from the project is set for September next year.

Fitzgerald said construction was advancing on many fronts under the watch of lead contractor Samsung C&T and he estimated construction was around 30% complete.

“If you want to think about that notion in the figures, it’s about a $10 billion project so I suppose 30% of $10 billion tells you about where we’re at,” he said.

“I think this month or last month we should have made our first $300 million a month figure and we are planning to go higher than that.

“We believe we’re the next major integrated iron ore mine, rail and port project – I suppose that’s an interesting saying, saying next, because it’s going to be awfully embarrassing if our 30% progress doesn’t come to reality.”

Fitzgerald said the collapse of Forge Group, which had the $1.47 billion Roy Hill processing plant contract in partnership with Duro Felguera, had no impact on the delivery of the project.

“In terms of delivering the project, clearly the key responsibility lies with Samsung C&T,” he said.

“I will make the comment, what happened is in this particular situation, people had demobilised from site on a Wednesday, some people remobilised from that same work group the following Tuesday, started doing work on Wednesday, placed the first concrete on Thursday.

“I think that demonstrates there was an ability of Samsung and the business to respond and obviously a range of people, a range of companies, to respond remarkably quickly, so I think the impact of Forge has not made a material impact on our business, we don’t expect it to … and we need to recognise Samsung is operating in Australia for the first time and I think as a major foreign company, they’ve displayed a significant capability to do what they’ve done to date.”

Roy Hill’s 70%-owner, Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting, is still seeking final funding for the project and Fitzgerald said it was well-progressed and the company would advise as soon as possible.

“All major construction contracts are awarded and commenced and the majority of our production is already contracted,” he said.

“The message there is both of those words are pretty loose in terms of how much we’ve sold and how close the level of funding is, so in order to answer the question that I’m probably going to get around funding, the answer is there.”

And Fitzgerald is confident the project won’t run out of money while the debt funding process progresses.

“We obviously have confidence that we’ll achieve funding,” he said.

“Having said that, we are also looking prudently at our project and making sure that we are able to continue on program.

“If you try to take steps once you’ve achieved a certain critical rate, it’s very difficult to do – but you can still do it.

“We think that in the scenarios we can see, there is not an issue.”

Fitzgerald said the recent drop in the iron ore price had no bearing on the financing process, given the relative stability of long-term price estimates.

“At the moment, for me, financing is about 12 months old, so it’s been a very long moment and obviously in that moment, you see iron ore go up and down and around,” he said.

“We’ve got significant players involved on the equity side in terms of the Japanese, Taiwanese and Korean companies and we’ve got the Hancock group.

“That’s provided us a huge amount of credibility.”