Emerging Australian iron ore miner Atlas Iron Limited has announced that on September 17 it shipped the first ore from the new Utah Point port facility, the ore being produced at its two North Pilbara iron ore mines, Wodgina and Pardoo.
Since early September, Atlas has been stockpiling ore at the Utah Point port facility which was commissioned recently.
The company is now mining at 5 million mt per year, up from the previous 1.2 million mt per year, and is on track to achieve its target of a 6 million mt per year export rate by Christmas. The Utah port is at the heart of Atlas' scheduled increase in production to 6 million mt per year by Christmas and then to 12 million mt per year by 2012.