Pardoo mine


The Pardoo mine is an iron ore mine located in the Pilbara region of Western Australia, 75 kilometres east of Port Hedland.
The mine is fully owned and operated by Atlas Iron Limited and was, at the time of commencement of production, the company's only operational mine. Atlas Iron is an iron ore explorer, developer and producer, predominantly active in the Pilbara region.
Atlas Iron is a minor iron ore mining company, especially compare to the three big Pilbara iron ore miners, BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto and the Fortescue Metals Group.

Overview

The mine commenced production in October 2008 and was the first producing mine to be operated by Atlas Iron. Ore is crushed and screened on site before being hauled by road trains to Port Hedland, where the ore is shipped from. The mine cost A$12 million to develop but, on start up of production, was troubled by the Global financial crisis, with Atlas having hoped to sell its production on the spot market. Falling demands at the time however proved to be a challenge for the company as it had to find buyers for its ore. Atlas was able to recover from this position and, by the second half of 2009, sharply increasing revenue from its mine.
Mining is carried out in an open pit operation. In its first year of operation, the mine produced 1.08 million tonnes of ore, but in full production, the mine is scheduled to produce 2.4 million tonnes of iron ore annually.
In 2010, Atlas commenced production on its Wodgina mine, also located in the Pilbara. The company plans to lift production from its Pilbara operations to 12 million tonnes of iron ore by 2012, up from 6.5 million tonnes in late 2010. Of these, 10 million tonnes are scheduled to come from the new Turner River hub, which is to blend and process ore from the company's northern Pilbara projects, located at Wodgina, Abydos and Mt Webber.
Atlas is hopeful to come to terms with BHP Billiton in regards to using the company's rail infrastructure, the Goldsworthy railway, in the future. BHP, in late 2010, had agreed to a joint feasibility study into how an arrangement might work.