Rio plots monster pit

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From The West:

Rio Tinto is working on plans to build the biggest single pit iron ore mine in the Pilbara, filing environmental applications for a 70 million tonne-a-year monster at its Yandicoogina operation.

…The documents suggest the Pocket and Billiard South pit would be about 7.5km long and nearly a kilometre wide.

Rio told the Environmental Protection Authority it wanted to begin production at the new pit in 2017, at an initial rate of 28mtpa.

That would take total production at Yandicoogina to 70mtpa, with expansion of the pit likely as other areas of the mining hub wind down.

Yandicoogina currently ships ore at a rate of about 54mtpa, and Rio said last year it planned to up that by about 8mtpa as part of its push to export 330mtpa by the middle of next year.

About the author
David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal. He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.