Name of the Mine
Hamersley Iron.

Location  
Pilbara region, Western Australia.

Mine Owner/s  
Rio Tinto.

Brief Description  
Hamersley Iron forms part of Rio Tinto’s Australian Pilbara Operations and includes the Brockman 2, Brockman 4, Channar, Gudai-Darri, Marandoo, Mount Tom Price, Nammuldi, Paraburdoo, Silvergrass, Western Turner Syncline and Yandicoogina mines.

Brief History  
Mount Tom Price started operations in 1966, followed by Paraburdoo in 1974. During the 1990s, Channar (1990), Brockman 2 (1992), Marandoo (1994) and Yandicoogina (1998) achieved first ore. Nammuldi achieved first ore in 2006, followed by Brockman 4 (2010), Western Turner Syncline (2011) and Silvergrass (2017). The latest addition to the network of Hamersley Iron mines is Gudai-Darri (2021).

Primary Metals/Minerals  
Iron-ore.

Secondary Metals/Minerals  
None stated.

Geology/Mineralisation  
The Brockman 2, Brockman 4, Channar, Gudai-Darri, Tom Price, Paraburdoo and Western Turner Syncline mineralisation is hematite/goethite mineralisation hosted within the banded iron formations of the Brockman Formation. Detrital deposits also occur at these sites.

At Tom Price and Western Turner Syncline, some goethite/haematite mineralisation hosted within the Marra Mamba Formation also occurs.

At Marandoo and Silvergrass mineralisation occurs as goethite/haematite within the banded iron formations of the Marra Mamba Formation.

Some detrital mineralisation also occurs.

At Yandicoogina, goethite mineralisation occurs as pisolite ores within the

paleochannel of a channel iron formation.

Reserves  
Total mineral reserves as at December 31, 2022, were estimated at 2.67-billion tonnes grading 60.9% iron and 3.7% silicon dioxide.

Resources  
None stated.

Type of Mine
All mines operated by Rio Tinto within the Australian Pilbara Operations are openpit mines.

Mining Method  
Conventional surface mining.

Shovels and loaders are used to load drilled and blasted material into trucks for removal to waste dumps and stockpiles or fed to process plants, in addition to mining activities.

Major Infrastructure/Equipment
At Brockman 2, Brockman 4, the Nammuldi dry plant and Gudai-Darri, dry crushing and screening are used to produce lump and fines iron-ore products.

Ore from the Silvergrass and Nammuldi mines is blended and processed through a wet scrubbing and screening plant, ahead of desliming of the fines product using hydrocyclones.

At Marandoo, wet scrubbing and screening is used to produce lump and fines iron-ore products, prior to the desliming of fines products using hydrocyclones.

Ore from the Channar and Paraburdoo mines is crushed and then processed through a central tertiary crushing and dry screening plant to produce a dry lump product, with further wet processing of the fines using hydrocyclones to remove slimes.

Ore from the Tom Price and Western Turner Syncline mines is directed to either the high-grade plant for dry crushing and screening to dry lump and fines products, or to the low-grade plant for beneficiation. Heavy-media separation is used to beneficiate low-grade lump, and a combination of heavy-media hydrocyclones and spirals is used to beneficiate the low-grade fines.

At Yandi, ore is crushed to fines product only through a combination of dry crushing and screening or crushing and wet processing of ore using classification to remove finer particles.

The processing plants within the Hamersley Iron network vary considerably in age, and many plants have been subject to brownfields development since original construction. All plants are subject to an ongoing regime of sustaining capital investment and maintenance, underpinned by asset integrity audits, engineering inspections, engineering life cycles for key equipment, and safety inspections and audits.

Access and infrastructure within the Hamersley Iron property includes a network of sealed and unsealed roads connecting to public roads and highways; public and Rio Tinto-operated airports; a Hamersley and Robe-owned integrated heavy haulage rail network, operated by Pilbara Iron comprising more than 1 890 km of rail, multiple rail cars and locomotives; four shipping terminals, located at Dampier and Cape Lambert and managed as a single port system; water piping networks for abstracted water and the supply of fresh water to sites; managed accommodation villages for fly-in, fly-out sites; a housing portfolio managing properties in the towns of Dampier, Wickham, Karratha, Pannawonica, Paraburdoo and Tom Price; and tailings storage facilities at several mine sites.

Prospects  
None stated.

Contact Details
Rio Tinto
Tel +61 3 9283 3333
Email investorenquiries@riotinto.com/ australia.communications@riotinto.com

Sources
Rio Tinto. Website: https://www.riotinto.com/