Business overview

Rio Tinto's Iron Ore group comprises wholly owned subsidiaries and joint venture initiatives. We own and manage mining and processing operations located in North America and Australia, with development projects located in Africa and India.

We maintain sales offices in Asia and Europe and operate a global marine freight management network. Our corporate headquarters are located in Perth, Western Australia.

Our global operations cover:

• Pilbara
• Kwinana
• Labrador City and Sept-Îles
• Simandou
• Orissa

Pilbara operations 

With a network of 14 mines, three shipping terminals and the largest privately owned heavy freight railway in Australia spanning 1,400 kilometres, our Pilbara iron ore operations have an annual capacity of 225 million tonnes, with advanced plans to increase capacity to 283 million tonnes by 2013, on a pathway to 333 million tonnes by 2015.

Our iron ore operations are concentrated in the Pilbara region of north west Western Australia.

This includes our assets owned by Hamersley Iron - a wholly owned subsidiary of Rio Tinto - and Robe River Iron Associates - an unincorporated joint venture in which Mitsui (33 per cent), Nippon Steel (10.50 per cent) and Sumitomo Metal Industries (3.5 per cent) also have interests.

To learn more about our Pilbara iron ore operations, click here.

Expansion Projects 

Our Expansion Projects business unit manages the portfolio of major iron ore expansion activities and studies - taking a project from conceptual level, through pre-feasibility and feasibility phases and upon approval, constructing and commissioning the project.

Expansion Projects works closely with our Pilbara iron ore operations, but is managed independently to minimise the impact on operations during project study and implementation phases of expansion.

To learn more about Expansion Projects, click here.

The Iron Ore Company of Canada has a head office in Montreal, Québec and operates a mine, concentrator and a pelletizing plant in Labrador City, Newfoundland and Labrador, as well as port facilities located in Sept-Îles, Quebec. The business operates a 418-kilometre rail network that links the mine to the port.  Our iron ore growth strategy saw Canadian operations expand production capacity to 18.4 million tonnes by mid-2008.

To learn more about our Canadian operations, click here.

Simandou, Guinea 

The Simandou project in eastern Guinea, west Africa, is a Rio Tinto greenfields discovery with potentially significant resources of high grade iron ore. We have been exploring and evaluating the iron ore potential of Simandou since 1997.  The project is in the final stages of feasibility studies.

To learn more about Simandou, click here.

Orissa, India 

Orissa is one of the key iron ore regions of the world. We have a joint venture partnership with state-owned Orissa Mining Company. The project will focus on meeting domestic demand for iron ore.

To learn more about Orissa, click here.

Kwinana 

HIsmelt, short for high-intensity smelting, is the world's first commercial direct smelting process for making iron straight from the ore. The technology smelts iron ore fines directly using non-coking coals, and offers significant economic and environmental benefits to the steel industry.

The Kwinana HIsmelt plant is owned by a Joint Venture comprising Rio Tinto (60 per cent), Nucor Corporation (25 per cent), Mitsubishi Corporation (10 per cent) and Shougang Corporation (5 per cent). The HIsmelt technology is fully owned by Rio Tinto.

Rio Tinto has recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Jindal Steel and Power Limited (JSPL) to take the next step in global commercialisation of the HIsmelt technology to be used in a fully integrated steel making facility.

The MoU will involve the relocation of the existing Kwinana HIsmelt plant from Australia to India at JSPL's existing facility in Angul, Orissa. The relocated plant will be fully owned by JSPL, and JSPL and Rio Tinto will work together to further develop and market the technology.

JSPL is part of the US$15 billion Indian-based Jindal Group, currently producing three million tonnes of steel annually and 1,800 megawatts of power.

We will be continuing our Kwinana site obligations in accordance with conditions set by the state regulators and Invest Australia. In addition, we will be working with HIsmelt employees to identify their options as we relocate the plant and continue to update our closure plan for the site.

To learn more about HIsmelt, click here.

Dampier Salt

Dampier Salt, the world's largest solar salt producer, has three operations across the Pilbara (Dampier and Port Hedland) and Gascoyne (Lake McLeod) regions of Western Australia.

To learn more about our salt operations, click here.