THE PILBARA MINING & RESOURCE EXPO 2012
The Pilbara, The Engine Room of Australia
They don’t call it Australia’s engine room for nothing, the Pilbara region of Western Australia continues to experience unprecedented and accelerated growth in the mining, gas and oil sectors. With exports running at more than $50 billion, its massive iron ore industry is the Nation’s largest export earner, dwarfing all other sectors. With new Mining Projects coming online worth billions of dollars and Oil and Gas projects, like the massive Gorgon Project worth billions more, opportunities for business in this booming region are at an all time high!
The Pilbara covers a total area of 507,896 square kilometres extending from the Indian Ocean to the
Northern Territory border (including offshore islands). The region comprises of four local government
authorities - the Shires of Ashburton, East Pilbara, Roebourne and the Town of Port Hedland and is home to mining and industrial complexes producing iron ore, copper, natural gas, salt and fertilizers. And across its rugged landscape run some of the world’s largest privately owned railways.
With major investments being made by multi-national conglomerates and the rapidly emerging “Junior
Miners”, the Pilbara is a huge market place for everything from mining and engineering services to human resources, sea, land and air transport, IT and consumable products.
Internationally, iron ore miners are ramping up production to meet booming demand from Asia, with
most of the growth in output set to come from the Pilbara where Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton, dominate
production. BHP Billiton Iron Ore has approximately 2,000 employees and 5,000 contractors employed in operations which include seven mine sites, port and processing facilities, nearly 1,000 kilometres of railway track and a rail fleet comprising over 70 locomotives and over 4,000 ore cars.
Rio Tinto Ltd has recently announced a $US3.1 billion expansion of its Pilbara iron ore infrastructure and is increasing its annual infrastructure capacity. Fortescue Metals Group which calls itself the ‘’new force in iron ore’’ is a $17 billion company, producing 55 million tonnes a year. Chinese-backed CITIC Pacific’s Cape Preston project is on target to produce 26 million tonnes of iron ore a year. Atlas Iron expects to double production to 12 million tonnes by 2012, while BC Iron expects to be producing 1 million tonnes a year from its 50- 50 Nullagine joint venture with Fortescue, and Gindalbie Metals says its Karara project will soon be producing 2 million tonnes a year. And it isn’t just iron ore that’s ringing the registers.
Chevron and its Joint Venture Participants - ExxonMobil and Shell - have embarked on one of Australia’s greatest resource developments – the Gorgon Project. With an estimated cost of $43 billion for the first phase of development of this massive natural gas project, Gorgon will drive regional economic growth and improve energy security for at least the next 40 years