Iron Ore Operations

Our Chichester Hub in the Chichester Ranges includes the Cloudbreak and Christmas Creek mines and has an annual production capacity of approximately 100 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) from three ore processing facilities (OPFs).

Consistent and sustained performance delivered from the OPFs has allowed us to optimise our product strategy through enhanced blending and beneficiation, supporting iron grades and reducing impurities.

To further enhance our ore, the Christmas Creek OPF infrastructure has been upgraded to include a Wet High Intensity Magnetic Separator to recover high grade iron from the finer ore fed through the OPF.

Cloudbreak utilises 10km of relocatable conveyors that can be adjusted and relocated to any new mining areas to offset the increase in costs. Currently, this conveyor infrastructure helps to otherwise offset a fleet increase and helps manage our product strategy, while being cost-efficient and when powered by renewable energy, reducing greenhouse gas emissions

The Solomon Hub in the Hamersley Ranges is located 60km north of Tom Price and 120km to the west of our Chichester Hub.

It comprises the Firetail, Kings Valley and Queens Valley mines which together have a production range of 65 to 70mtpa. The expansion to Queens Valley has enabled continued production of the Kings Fines product.

It also includes Fortescue's newest mine at Eliwana, which commenced operations in December 2020 and includes a 30mtpa dry OPF and 143km of rail linking the mine to our Hamersley rail line.

The Hub represents a valuable source of production, enabling the blend of higher iron grade Firetail ore with ore from the Chichester Hub to create our Fortescue Blend product.