Newman is located in the heart of the Pilbara and the town was built in the late 1960s to house the workforce employed at the Mt Whaleback iron ore mine. Iron ore was discovered in the Pilbara in 1957 and mining commenced in 1968 after a Commonwealth embargo was lifted. BHP owns the mine and it is the largest open-cut iron ore mine in the world. The other iron ore mine on the edge of the Hamersley Range is at Tom Price which is owned by Rio Tinto. We decided not to go to Tom Price and to come and visit Newman instead.
We went on the mine tour of Mt Whaleback. The above photo shows a portion of the mine with the colours of the different types of ores being fed into a mixer and crusher. Brockman hematite is blue grey and Goethite limonite is ochre.
This photo is of the pit and the pit shelves. The pit length of the mine is currently 5.5kms and it produces 70m tons of iron ore per annum. The 426 km railway that takes the iron ore to Port Hedland is the longest privately owned railway in the world and it was especially constructed to take the iron ore to Port Hedland for export to Japan. The increasing demand for iron ore from developing Asian economies will keep production continuing. There is an estimated 30 years of life left at Mt Whaleback Mine.
This is a photo of us in full mine regalia which was compulsory for the tour. We are standing in front of a 200 ton Wabco iron ore truck. When fully loaded the truck weighs more than the take off weight of a 747 jumbo jet.
Nikki standing in front of a large digger at the Visitors Centre - size unknown.
Apparently the mine tours used to be more involved with seeing machinery close up but BHP has restircted it as there have been a couple of deaths at the mine last year - not visitors. they certainyl emphasise safety aspects.
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