Understanding the facts
Australia are in the fortunate position that iron ore could be found basically all over the country. It is however in the western parts of the country that most of its iron resources could be found. In fact over 90% of all resources are concentrated in this area which according to statistics represent over 64 billion tons of iron ore. This makes this area one of the most mineral rich areas in the world. According to extensive research which has been conducted in 2009 it has been determined that the amount of iron ore which could be economically extracted amounts to about 28 billion ton which places Australia in the second place behind Ukraine as far as iron ore are concerned.
Predominantly open cut mines
Most of the iron ore mines all over the planet are mostly open cut mines. The mines in Western Australia are no exception and hundreds of tons of iron ore transported to various refinery installations for further treatment. Railway transport are frequently used to deal with the large volumes of iron ore which has to be transported. Some of these trains over 2 km in length and carries more than 25,000 tons of iron ore. Two of the largest iron ore producers in Australia are BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto Ltd. Some of the mines which are specifically managed by BHP Billiton are the Mount Newman joint venture as well as 3 other mines in the area. Most of the ore which are produced by this mines are transported by rail to Port Headland from where it is exported while some is transported to Australians steel works. A very large portion of this iron ore are further crushed and blended at the port.
The contribution of Rio Tinto Ltd.
Several mines are operated by this corporation such as the Mount Tome Price, Brockman 4 and several others. A very large portion of the iron ore which are produced by these mines are transported by rail to the Port of Dampier where it is further blended and screened before it is exported. Although there are fewer deposits in South Australia there are still some iron ore which are extracted from the Middleback Ranges by OneSteel limited and most of this are exported but a certain portion is also used for iron and steelmaking in Whyalla. There are many such mining interest all across Australia that are contributing substantially to the total iron production of this country. There several smaller mining operations all across Australia where iron ore are mined on a smaller scale mostly involving between 50,000 and 100,000 tons annually.
A large contributor
According to available statistics Australia produced almost 400,000,000 tons of iron ore in 2009 which amounted to an export value of over $30 billion. Western Australian contributed 97% of that amount. Australia are the largest exporter of iron ore while they are the second largest producer after China. Australia has a highly sophisticated iron producing industry which specializes in the production of very high quality iron and steel products. Australia are likely to remain one of the primary contributors to the global steel industry.
Official Tradeore B2B Marketplace Video: https://youtu.be/RcmDfuNOIxIrnrn
