In this region of Australia deposits in the iron ore bank are being withdrawn at a super-duper rate. Yesterday we witnessed first hand the port facilities shovelling the native mineral onto giant ships. The BHB Billiton accounting figures almost beggar belief. Within the port area there is 140kms of railway track (some 8 tracks side-by-side), most ore trains are 2.7km long with wagons carrying over 100 tonnes each or total capacity of 32,000 tonnes (one test record attempt train was actually over 7kms long), ore is stock piled everywhere, keeping local dust levels down means crushing is done at the Newman mine site and last year the mining giant handled 1300 ship movements exporting 364 million tonnes of iron ore alone.
Bloody big ships!
We counted 21 waiting off shore. It’s no wonder you can see a couple of these monsters passing the Dome while sipping just one flat white.
Isabel’s pictures tell the story.
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