Robe River to Expand Iron Ore Shipping Capacity to 80 million tonnes

Mitsui & Co., Nippon Steel and Sumitomo Metal Industries announced on Thursday they and Rio Tinto decided to expand annual shipment capacity of the iron ore joint venture, Robe River’s shipping port, Cape Lambert to 80 million tonnes. They expand the capacity by 23 million tonnes by the end of 2008 for US$ 860 million eyeing mining expansion. They try to stabilize the supply by the expansion under the worldwide tight supply. They pay the expansion investment depending on the share of Robe River, which Rio Tinto controls 53% with 33% share by Mitsui & Co., 10.5% by Nippon Steel and 3.5% by Sumitomo Metals. Robe River eyes expansion of West Angelas mine from 25 million tonnes of annual output capacity to 30 million tonnes. The higher output lifts the output of Robe River to 60 million tonnes from 53 million tonnes in 2006 requiring more port capacity.Rio Tinto expands the annual shipment capacity of Dampier port of Hamersley Iron, which is wholly owned subsidiary of Rio Tinto, to 140 million tonnes by the end of 2007 from current 117 million tonnes. Hamersley and Robe River share port infrastructure to ship iron ore since 2004. With the expansion, they try to ship more ore through the 2 ports.