Gindalbie Stocks Up 10% After 1st Shipment of Magnetite Iron from Karara Mine

Shares of Gandalbie Metals (ASX: GBG) jumped 10 per cent on Wednesday after the company made its first shipment of magnetite iron concentrate to China. The commodity was sources from its Karara project.

Gindalbie share rose by 2.5 cents to 27.5 cents at 11:50 a.m., making Gindalbie one of the companies to watch out for in 2013.

The Panamax ship, Sunrise Star, left Geraldton port with the first shipment of 55,000 tonnes of magnetite concentrate after months of stockpiling the resource.

The bulk of Australia's iron ore exports are hematite ores. The one exported by Gindalbie is magnetite ore which has a lower iron ore content and suitable for processing into iron ore pellets for steel production.

The company's Karara Iron Ore mine is a joint venture of Gindalbie with Ansteel, a Chinese steel manufacturer.

"It's also hugely significant for the entire Mid-West region and indeed even Western Australia, that for the first time we are aware of, we're now producing magnetite concentrate," Gindalbie Managing Director Tim Netscher said in a statement.

He disclosed that the company's commissioning of its concentrator at Karara was continuing to progress well while different sections of the plant are being commissioned sequentially and production rates as well as concentrate quality is improving. He added that Gindalbie is on track to reach its full nameplate production capability of 8 million tonnes per annum by the end of April 2013.

It reached the 1 million mark in early December. Karara has estimated magnetite reserves of 955.5 million tonnes at 36.5 per cent iron as of end of June 2012.

Mr Netscher said that 2012 was a tough year for the company from a market share perspective, but he expressed confidence that the underlying value of its Karara project will flow through 2013.

It is not just Gindalbie that had good news, but also the rest of the iron ore sector as reports from the steel index said that price of the steelmaking ingredient ended $5.50 higher at $144.90 per tonne on Monday.

Iron ore prices plummeted to a three-year low of $86.90 on September 2012, but ended incredibly strong at the end of 2012. The Monday price indicates it is approaching the 2011 average price of $150.