After the magnetic separator became operational around Jan 7 or 8, 2011, it was only days before trucking began, as 1st trucking pics were exif stamped ca Jan 11 or 12.
Only then could serious negotiations for shipping proceed. Either have to find an idle ship on west coast,which does not experience the bulk shipping glut seen in many parts of the world,or find a ship coming to west coast from asia-such bulk ships are rare as Asia is now the imperialist power-so bulk cargoes go TO Asia -where it is processed at as low as 6c/hour labor in factories (TV doc)-and then sold to the West. So its not apparently easy to find a bulk carrier coming to west.
Then once they had negotiated a shipping contract at least 2 things beyond CWRN's control-real world situations- occurred to delay the ship.
The Libyan civil war stopped Libyan oil exports and speculators ,always eager to take advantage of destruction and amplify it, quickly chased the price of oil to 120/bbl, even though Libya only provided 1.6% of the worlds exports of oil and such could easily have been compensated for by Saudi Arabia etc.-and price did drop soon after.
So CWRN could have waited for such prices to drop to save on shipping but probably cognizant of effect of delays already went ahead and shipped. 12 ton/surcharge is very high when u consider half or more of junior miners on the chart I've presented before have a production cost of 12.62/ton or less and iron was only 10-14/ton til 2002.
So as noted by a PR at that time,further negotiations had to be done to deal w that issue resulting in an 12/ton shipping surcharge-which seemed steep -but shipping has you over a barrel. Apparently -piecing things together, shipping price had already been set before those events or it wouldnt be called a surcharge. As Bob said "shipping sharks".
2nd issue-after a ship had been decided on, the shipping company later cancelled that ship and substituted another ship ,further delaying 1st ship-again "shipping sharks". So Bob said he was going to be extra careful in fashioning ship contracts after that-but apparently turned that over to shipping facilitators Geo (and as sunny noted on ihub CWRN was upset w the high shipping charges arranged by Geo for the Loreto which seemed to cwrn to be out of line w shipping costs at that time). So those are real world situations.
So given all these events beyond CWRN's control,shipping proceeded within as reasonable time as could be expected for 1st ship.
In business, in dealing w these situations you can either move on or make your legal dept the biggest part of the company and sue the manufacturer for the delay of the magnetic separator (thus ending any relationship w that supplier) and sue the shipping company for the delays it caused etc-.on and on.
So after the trouble w the 2nd ship CWRN hired shipping facilitator Dillon-see Sept 29 2011 PR and was expecting 3rd ship before Christmas-see Nov 17 PR etc--before the hassles w new permit. And I dont know what happened there- CWRN was urgently trying to get ship in before Christmas but Dillon was in charge of that and it didnt happen. Either because Dillon had trouble w shipping sharks also or because Bao suddenly took over shipping. or maybe Mex govt canceled 2011 permit before Christmas.
So this is an example of misunderstandings that develop and snowball until one party accuses another of a 6 month shipping delay on 1st ship. "full" production didnt even begin til Nov 5 (Nov 2010 PR) and processing couldnt proceed until Jan 2011 w the arrival and operation of the custom magnetic separator. And 1st ship arrived only 2 and a half months later,despite the shipping delays caused by the Libyan war/price of oil/renegotiations, and shipping company games .
