The Brisbane based Hawson’s shares were at 89 cents earlier this year but have plunged to 10 cents in recent weeks after it delayed its project’s bankable feasibility study because of cost escalation.

But it also revealed it now had it has letters of intent for offtake from its Broken Hill iron ore project worth 58 million tonnes, which was almost three times the planned annual production rate.

Managing director Bryan Granzien said the current list of 18 potential off-takers consisted of 12 steel mills and six commodity trading houses.

“Significantly, we have been in discussion with representatives from several parties, including global mining groups, steel mill operators and commodity traders who have expressed investment interest to support development of our world class Hawsons iron project near Broken Hill when the bankable feasibility study is more advanced,” he said.

“This level of investment interest in the project and robust offtake demand is clearly a strong demonstration that making the transition to producing zero emission green steel is front and centre on the global steel industry’s planning horizon and that Australia is a preferred supplier of high-grade magnetite concentrate.”

When the company stalled its BFS it also said it would be investigating scaling options and Granzien said there was confidence the company had sufficient demand to support its 20 million tonnes a year production rate.