Australian miner Rio Tinto has announced that its Pilbara iron ore operations have reached a run rate of 290 million mt per year, two months ahead of schedule.
Rio Tinto said that early completion of expansion has added significant value to the Pilbara operations. The miner added that the achievement further underlines the world-class status of Rio Tinto's Western Australian iron ore operations and follows completion of the infrastructure component in September 2013, which itself was delivered four months ahead of schedule and $400 million under budget.
Rio Tinto is now focused on the next phase of the expansion project towards 360 million mt per year and expects to increase mine production capacity by more than 60 million mt per year by 2017.