It has been a massive year for David Flanagan and his team with mining at the company’s flagship Pardoo operation near Port Hedland kicking off in October last year and its maiden iron ore shipment leaving Port Hedland last December.
The miner is targeting 1 million export tonnes in its first 12 months of operations at Pardoo, growing to 3Mt for the second year.
The company is then expected to double exports to 6Mt for 2010 when Abydos comes online, growing to 12Mt per annum by 2012.
Accepting the award, an enthusiastic Flanagan thanked the Atlas management team, and their wives, for all their hard work.
“When you wake up tomorrow morning, reach over, pick up a shovel, go out and dig a hole and set yourself free,” he gushed in front of a delighted crowd.
Phosphate explorer Minemakers received the Best Emerging Company Award.
Minemakers’ flagship project is Wonarah, one of Australia’s largest known phosphate deposits with an inferred resource of more than 1.1 billion tonnes.
In addition to the Wonarah project, Minemakers holds a string of base metals, gold and uranium assets in Tasmania, Western Australia and the Northern Territory.
Meantime, the Dealer Award went to Queensland coal mining magnate and former Macarthur Coal chief Ken Talbot who was recognised for yielding a substantial premium for his shares in the company.
In mid-2008, Talbot received and accepted an offer for his shareholding in excess of $21 per share.
Taking out the GJ Stokes Memorial Award was Nick Giorgetta.
Giorgetta was managing director of Samantha Gold, which was taken over by Resolute Mining.
Following Samantha Gold, Giorgetta then established Equigold before being taken over by Lihir.
In May, Giorgetta as well as two other former directors of Equigold, succeeded in ousting the board of Regis Resources at an extraordinary general meeting.
This year’s recipient of the Media Award was veteran mining journalist Ross Louthean.
Louthean initiated one of the first magazines in the resources sector and has also played a major part in setting up commodity-specific resource conferences.
