News: UPDATE 1-Iron ore shipments to China up 1 pct in Dec-Pilbara Ports, page-16

Hi Robot,

There are five different type of iron ore in Pilbara region.

• Channel Iron Deposit (CID) Ore – Grade range from 50 to 58% Fe. Primary CID is +58% Fe. If you got more lower grade ore means, it has more ore effected by weathering.
• Marra Mamba Ore – Grade range from 60 to 66% Fe. Top surface ore will have 50 to 55% Fe, this is due to weathering effect. This ore type is very low P% values. FMG has lower grade product in their deposit. This deposit has higher effect of weathering and ore body is very shallow depth.
• Brockman Ore – Grade range from 60 to 67% Fe, again same top surface ore will have 50 to 55% Fe. This is due to weathering effect. This is medium to high P% value.
• Detrital Ore – Grade range from 50 to 65% Fe.
• Magnetite Concentrate Ore –Grade grange from 65 to 67% Fe.

Most of the deposit in Pilbara will have approximately 25% tonnage of low grade (50 to 55% Fe). This is due to weather effect at surface. Some of these deposit are 200m in depth from surface.

BCI ore is Channel Iron Deposit ore.

• It is mesa with shallow depth.
• Highly weather ore. Hence it has lower grade than high grade.
• Average Fe grade in CID type deposit cannot be more than 58%. This product has high percentage of goethite and high internal moisture values.

If resource is low Fe values means, the deposit has higher percentage of weathered product. Technically the primary ore is 60 to 66% Fe. The Fe variation is due to internal shale or clays.

BHP or RIO have more scope for blending the different product grade. At the end they will achieve + 60 to 62.5% Fe product grade with 0.08% P.

Hope this explanation will help.