Channar hamersley

Rio Tinto, one of the worlds largest iron ore miners, owns the Channar- Hamersley iron ore mine as a joint venture through its wholly owned subsidiary Hamersley Iron Pty Ltd and Sinosteel Channar Pty Ltd, a fully owned subsidiary of Sinosteel Australia Pty Ltd. The joint venture to mine the Brockman bedded iron deposit was agreed to in 1987 with Hamersley Iron holding 60 percent of the shareholding in the venture and Sinosteel 40 percent. Part of the agreement was that Sinosteel Corporation, a Chinese steel maker, would purchase all the iron ore produced at the mine for the life of the mine.

The Channar-Hamersley Mine is 20 Kilometres from the Mining Centre of Paraburdoo
The Channar-Hamersley open cut mine that is situated 20 kilometres east of Paraburdoo in the Pilbara Region of Western Australia commenced production at the Channar Mine site in early 1990 and eight years later had reached its design production target of 10 million tonnes a year. The first 200 million tonnes to be produced from the Channar-Hamersley mine was achieved in 2012.

Channar-Hamersley was the Biggest and First Venture Undertaken Between China and Australia
At the time of agreeing to the Channar Mine joint venture it was one of the biggest investments ever agreed to between China and Australia and the first overseas mineral resource project undertaken by a Chinese company. The joint venture agreement was officially welcomed by both the Australian and Chinese governments and was given considerable support by both governments to ensure its success. Twenty six years later it remains an important Chinese overseas investment project.

Global Financial Crisis Closed the Channar-Hamersley Mine in 2008
The Channar-Hamersley Mine was forced to close in the latter half of 2008 because of the upheaval created in the mining industry by the advent of the world Global Financial Crisis (GFC) and the joint venture partner, Sinosteel, making a decision to break the initial agreement and purchase its iron ore from Brazil, where it could obtain iron ore 11 percent cheaper. However, when conditions returned to something more resembling normal, trading resumed and by 2010 both Rio Tinto and Sinosteel announced their intention to raise production at the Channar-Hamersley operation by a further 50 million tonnes annually.

Channar-Hamersley Ore treated at the Channar and Paraburdoo Processing Plants
Ore mined at the Channar-Hamersley open pit is processed by means of two stages of crushing before being taken by conveyor belt to another processing plant at Paraburdoo for further treatment and blending with other ores to become part of the Rio Tinto Pilbara blend. Channar- Hamersley ore is allowed to provide 11 million tonnes of crusher feed ore a year into the Paraburdoo Processing Plant that handles a total of 23 million tonnes a year which is provided by other mines also servicing the plant such as the Eastern Range Mine and the Paraburdoo Mine.

The blended iron ore leaves the Paraburdoo Processing Plant and is transported by rail on the Hamersley and Robe River Railway to Dampier where it is once again blended and screened with ores from other Rio Tinto mines from throughout the Pilbara before being exported to China.

The workforce at the Channar-Hamersley Mine mainly consists of residential personnel from Paraburdoo, although fly-in-fly-out workers are also accommodated.