The project was awarded major project status by the federal government in March.

The July 2017 prefeasibility study returned hefty capital costs of US$1.4 billion, but strong economics.

Hawsons has become more compelling over the past year due to the structural change in China that has driven demand for higher grade iron ore.

Hill said Hawsons' Supergrade product was the world's highest iron content iron ore at 70%.

While the 62% price is currently around $64 per tonne, 70% iron can fetch $99-105/t.

"This is the right project for right now," Hill told the Noosa Mining and Exploration Conference last week.

The PFS assumed revenue of $88 per dry metric tonne for 10 million tonnes per annum of production over at least 30 years.

Total cost and freight costs are expected to be $48.03/dmt, or $23.03/dmt minus the Supergrade premium.

The project is cashflow positive at a 62% iron benchmark price of less than $30/t.

According to Hill, well-respected commodity consultancy CRU Group regards Hawsons as the best development project in the iron ore space.

Carpentaria's 64% share of the project returned an equity internal rate of return of 29.9% and net present value of $1.09 billion.

Hill believes the gap between the NPV and Carpentaria's market capitalisation of just A$16 million will start to close as the year goes on.

A catalyst for that could be the signing of binding offtake agreements.

Carpentaria has letters of intent for 12Mtpa of offtake with Asian and Middle East steelmakers like Formosa Plastics, Bahrain Steel and Shagang.

The company is aiming to complete the bankable feasibility study next year and start construction in early 2020.