Corporate brochure - Diverse places (PDF 2.36 MB) - Rio Tinto

Pilbara Iron
1 Giant stackers blend ore before
shipment in bulk carriers.
Western Australia’s spectacular Pilbara landscape runs red
with iron. Hematite, an iron ore mineral, gets its name from the
blood red streak it gives when rubbed across a rough surface.
Ordinarily, iron makes up about five per cent of the Earth’s crust,
but concentrations called banded iron formations are 14 times
higher in the Pilbara. The iron ore fields are huge. The Hamersley
ore province is roughly the size of Portugal. The largest orebodies,
such as Rio Tinto’s Mount Tom Price, contain several billion tonnes
of ore and are mined almost continuously over distances that
approach 10 kilometres.
Rio Tinto Iron Ore (RTIO) is the largest iron ore producer in the
Pilbara. It has unrivalled operational flexibility with nine mines and
three ports served by an integrated rail system. It owns Hamersley
Iron as well as Rio Tinto’s 53 per cent interest in Robe River Iron
Associates, acquired in 2000. In 2003 Rio Tinto reached agreement
with its joint venture partners in Robe River to allow closer
cooperation between the Pilbara operations of Hamersley Iron
and Robe River.
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