Iron ore junior Flinders Mines has secured an agreement with a large, independent rail provider to investigate hauling its ore in Western Australia's competitive Pilbara region.

The South Australia based company announced that it had signed a non binding heads of agreement with an independent rail provider that had significant experience in bulk commodity transport in Australia.

The company said that "The rail provider will investigate solutions for the transportation of iron ore on a multi-user rail line from the Pilbara to nearby ports on the Western Australian coast, in conjunction with Flinders.”

Flinders would not name the rail provider, but QR National has long been touted as a potential solution to the problem for the growing list of iron-ore juniors who cannot gain access to BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto and Fortsecue Metals infrastructure.

Mr Lance Hockridge CEO of QR said that in Western Australia's Pilbara region the company was looking to network smaller operations to give them economies of scale.

Flinders Mines' flagship project, the Pilbara iron ore project, has an expected development cost of AUD 640 million and is targeting 15m tonnes a year of production from 2014.

The asset is bordered by Rio Tinto's undeveloped Caliwingina North resource, Fortescue Metals' Solomon deposit and Rio's Brockman operation.

Mr Gary Sutherland MD of Flinders said the agreement was one potential solution, adding that it had in place confidentiality agreements with other parties. He added that "The heads of agreement provides scope to jointly tackle the rail haulage task in terms of timing, route location, tonnage, product mix and material handling.”

(Sourced from www.theaustralian.com.au)