Roy Hill gets connected
The iron ore price may be against Gina Rinehart but at least her $10 billion Roy Hill project has gained power.
Alinta said yesterday it had completed construction and commissioning of a 121km long, 200 kilovolt transmission line from its Newman power station to the Roy Hill mine site, ahead of schedule and within its undisclosed budget.
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The line is a key plank in Roy Hill's development, ahead of a target to produce first shipments of ore in September.
For Alinta, it ends uncertainty around the future of its 178 megawatt gas-fired power station in Newman, which was on the verge of redundancy after previous anchor customer BHP Billiton decided to build its own electricity generator.
The Roy Hill line adds to the increasing amount of power infrastructure in the region.
The owner of the Dampier-to-Bunbury gas pipeline last week completed construction of the 270km Fortescue River Gas Pipeline. The new line runs from the Dampier-to-Bunbury to Fortescue's Solomon operation to fuel TransAlta's 125MW station.
The private-equity owned Alinta, which has staked its future growth on increased business in the Pilbara, remains in a tussle with State-owned utility Horizon Power for the right to supply Roy Hill's port operations at Port Hedland. Roy Hill needs up to 25MW at Port Hedland, and both Alinta and Horizon have uncontracted electricity available.
