What is mined in western australia

The Centre incorporates visualisation and collaboration tools to provide real-time information across our demand chain and allows us to optimise our mining, maintenance and logistic activities across the Pilbara in a way never before possible.

It also improves cycle times by using information about network topography to calculate and deliver a safe, consistent driving strategy.

About one-third of our haul truck fleet across our Pilbara sites is also autonomous. These trucks, which use pre-defined GPS courses to automatically navigate haul roads and intersections, and which continuously track actual locations, speeds and directions of other vehicles, allow us to move more material, more efficiently and safely, increasing productivity. We also continue to expand our Autonomous Drilling System ADS , now with a fleet of 26 production drills across seven sites including the recent deployment of an additional three production drills at Hope Downs 4.

ADS allows us to monitor multiple drills from different manufacturers across multiple sites from a single remote drill console in Perth. We recognise the cultural, spiritual and physical connections that Traditional Owners have with the land, water, plants and animals across the Pilbara region of Western Australia.

Daniel is a mining engineer at our Marandoo iron ore mine in the Pilbara , Western Australia. It made us focus on how we were using technology. For some reason Pac-Man came to mind. We are constantly asking ourselves — do we really need to be physically present to do this? How can we use technology to do it more safely and efficiently?

That means we need to visit the mine less in person. Our health and safety teams have been busy putting other safeguards in place around site: all our rooms have been measured and marked out so we know the maximum number of people that can be in an area at one time.

And we have crosses marked on the floor too to help us keep a safe distance when we are in the room. We are continually investing in our operations in the Pilbara, introducing next generation technologies that can deliver greater efficiency, lower production costs and improved health, safety and environmental performance. For the very first time, we will leverage technology already in use across our business, such as autonomous trucks, trains and drills, and implement systems that connect all components of the mining value chain.

It will also become a new production hub for our iron ore business, incorporating a processing plant and infrastructure including a kilometre rail line connecting the mine to our existing network. Gudai-Darri will also create jobs and business opportunities in Western Australia, including for Traditional Owners and Indigenous people. The construction phase will create over 2, jobs; when operational, we expect the mine to employ about people.

Gudai-Darri Koodaideri will be our most technologically advanced mine yet. Discover more about life at Rio Tinto. With the exception of the use of cookies, Rio Tinto generally does not seek to collect personal data through this website.

Commodity prices are set in international markets by supply and demand fundamentals. In the current settings, commodity prices are at record highs because of strong world demand. This circumstance has dramatically improved Australian terms of trade—that is the ratio of export to import prices. Put another way, it takes fewer exports of a mineral commodity to balance the purchase price of, say, car imports. However, commodity prices can fall because of changing global circumstances such as falling world demand.

This means they have no allegiance to a particular country. However, a vote of confidence in Australia is illustrated by huge capital investments currently being undertaken in a number of resource sector projects across Australia.

The most recent issue that has raised considerable interest and debate in the resources sector was the announcement in the Budget of the imposition of a Resources Super Profits Tax RSPT on the minerals industry. In contrast to the RSPT, this would apply only to mined iron ore and coal rather than to all minerals. The major iron ore and coal producers, namely BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto and Xstrata, indicated to the Gillard Government that the newer proposed tax was less likely to reduce future mine investment.

However, smaller mining companies have shown significant opposition to the MRRT proposal. With both schemes, the Commonwealth said that it intends to rebate any forgone mineral royalty income to the states and territories. Together we build journalism that is independent, credible and fearless. You can further help us by making a donation. This will mean a lot for our ability to bring you news, perspectives and analysis from the ground so that we can make change together.

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