WHILE big mining operations are nothing new in the Pilbara,...

WHILE big mining operations are nothing new in the Pilbara, CITIC Pacific’s $US3.6 billion ($A4.6 billion) Sino Iron project is especially large and complex. It also features some impressive gear. By Kate Haycock.

The ultra class mining fleet at the Sino Iron project.

Hong Kong-backed company CITIC is developing a 27.6 million tonne magnetite iron operation at Cape Preston.

In doing so, the company is not only creating an enormous pit, but also a large and complex minerals handling process that involves more downstream processing than has been done in the Pilbara in decades.

CITIC chief executive officer Barry Fitzgerald told journalists on Tuesday the project would create a whole new paradigm in the iron ore industry in Australia as the country’s first major magnetite operation.

Some 4000 people will be employed during its construction and 600 full-time staff will be responsible for operations.

The project will return around $A70 billion to the Australian economy over its 25-year mine life.

Out of its total 27.6Mt of production, CITIC is aiming to export 6Mt per annum in the form of direct reduction pellets and the pellet plant is due to be up and running by 2011 or 2012.

The other 21.6Mt will be exported to steel mills in China as a concentrate.

Production will go to CITIC Pacific, the parent company of CITIC Pacific Mining, and CITIC’s 20% partner in the Sino Iron project, MCC (the China Metallurgical Group Corporation), along with other steel mills in Asia.

However, Fitzgerald has not detailed the exact breakdown in any offtake agreements the company has made thus far.

The fleet

The Sino Iron mining fleet will include 15 Terex MT6300 electric drive haul trucks, which have a 363t payload and are the biggest mining trucks in the world, out-muscling the other trucks used in the Pilbara.

These will be matched by three Terex RH400 hydraulic excavators – which can load the Terex haul trucks in three passes – and LeTourneau L2350 wheel loaders, the largest front-end loaders on the planet.

There are also two Caterpillar M24 motor graders – again, the largest road graders in the word - which will be handling the important road grading tasks.

ThyssenKrupp is building four in-pit crushers for the project that can each chew their way through 4250 tonnes per hour, representing the largest in-pit crushing system in Australia.

This mining fleet will have the capacity to mine up to 150Mtpa, and this will make it one of the biggest single mining operations in the Pilbara.

For comparison, Fitzgerald said BHP’s Mount Whaleback had a production rate of 110Mtpa in its heyday.

After crushing, the ore will be conveyed to the processing plant which will consist of six lines that will come on one at a time, to enable production to start as quickly as possible.

There will be six AG (autogenous grinding) mills with 28-megawatt motors, the highest powered and largest in their class in the world, and six 15.6MW, 13.6m long ball mills.

These are being built by CITIC Heavy Industries in China, a sister company to CITIC Pacific Mining.

The ore will move through the AG mills first, then through a rough magnetic separator, into the ball mill and then into a thickener.

After being laundered, the concentrate will be ready to export, except for the 6Mtpa that will be sent to the pellet plant.

Power, water and port

To power all this crushing, grinding and pelletising capacity, the project will have its own 450MW gas-fired power station, which is a combined cycle operation, the first of its kind in the Pilbara.

With this style of operation, not only does super-heated gas turn turbines, generating power, but any escaping heat is then used to create super-heated steam which will drive a second set of turbines.

The power station, which has a diesel back-up, is modular as well and could be expanded if the scale of the project grows.

As a result, the power station is around 40% more efficient than just a straight gas-fired station, which also means 40% fewer emissions.

The magnetite processing also uses water, and lots of it.

As a result, CITIC is also building a 51-gigalitre desalination plant – the same size as the plant at Kwinana near Perth – which means the company won’t have to tap into groundwater.

The mining development is also being supported by a massive infrastructure build, including a 25km long slurry pipeline from the minesite to Cape Preston.

And then there’s the port facility, which will feature a 2.6km long breakwater.

This will allow the concentrate and pellets to be loaded on barges, which will then transfer the magnetite product to ships around 20km from the shore.

Fitzgerald said this transhipping system was a cheap and easy option in comparison to dredging out a channel for Panamax-sized vessels, the usual approach to shipping in the Pilbara, and with barges used in the coal and iron ore industries in Brazil and Indonesia.

To get to Cape Preston, where the pellet plant, desalination plant and barge-loading facilities are being built, CITIC also needs to construct a 4.4km long causeway across an inlet.

A temporary causeway is already in place, with a new causeway under construction from layers of rock and a special fabric that allows water to run through the causeway itself, meaning the tides in and out of the inlet will not be disrupted.

The list of contractors working on the project is likewise exhaustive, including NRW Holdings, VDM Group, Thiess Australia, Ausdrill and Brandrill , along with a number of international companies such as Austrian Energy & Environment.

And while the project’s scale is impressive, so is its timeline. First production is in the third quarter of next year – less than two years after first earth was turned at the project and only four years after CITIC first acquired its right to mine in the region.


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