Ore processing

At Mount Tom Price, a high-grade plant produces lump item, fines and oversize. The oversize is returned for tertiary crushing following which it becomes component in the feed to the product screens.

Low-grade ore is treated in a concentrator exactly where waste shale is removed by heavy-medium separation (HMS). The low-grade ore, a mixture of well-liberated haematite and shale, feeds the concentrator and undergoes HMS and wet high-intensity magnetic separation (WHIMS) to generate saleable lump and fines solutions. The WHIMS plant contains three modules, every single with one Jones DP317 separator.

At Paraburdoo, the fine ore stream from crushing and screening is wet screened and hydrocycloned to get rid of slimes. The Paraburdoo fines processing plant (PFPP) improves the high quality of fines by minimizing gangue impurities, particularly alumina. The PFPP treats all fines produced from Paraburdoo and Channar. The ultra-fines are removed by wet screens and hydrocyclones. The plant is designed to approach roughly 12Mt/y of feed and achieve a 91% recovery on a dry basis.

The Marandoo plant is designed to approach up to 12Mt/y of ore into lump and fines products. The Marandoo flowsheet excludes a main stockpile, facilitating the integration of mine/plant operations, specifically product good quality control. All output from the screening plants and concentrators is transported from the mines by Hamersley’s own rail system towards the port of Dampier for export.

Expansion

All of Rio Tinto’s Western Australian iron-ore operations are currently becoming expanded, primarily using the aim of meeting surging Chinese demand for iron ore. Thus capacity at the port of Dampier was recently expanded to 116Mt/y, whilst the expansion with the Yandicoogina mine to 36Mt/y was completed in late 2005.

In 2005, the corporation committed $290m for additional capacity expansions at Mount Tom Price, Marandoo and Nammuldi, then an extra $1.35bn for higher capacity at the Dampier port and at Yandicoogina. The Dampier project is total and now accounts for a combined output of 140Mt/y whilst Yandicoogina’s output will rise to 52Mt/y.

At Robe River, expansion of West Angelas was completed in late 2005 at a cost of $105m, growing its capacity to 25Mt/y. $200m was spent on upgrading the Robe River rail link to the coast, with $860m budgeted for an expansion with the Cape Lambert port fromm 55Mt/y to 80Mt/y.

Future expansion

Rio Tinto has also began various projects in line with its plans to boost annual production capacity beyond 220 million tonnes. The firm is investing $500m in regional power development in the Pilbara, which calls for setting up a gas-powered power plant next towards the 7 Mile rail operations center.

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