Ports
Ship loader at Nelson Point, Port Hedland, Western Australia. Port facilities at Finucane Island and Nelson Point are currently equipped to load 4 x 160,000 tonne ships at one time.
BHP Billiton Iron Ore exports its products to steelmakers in Japan, Korea, Taiwan, China, Europe and Australia through Port Hedland, which is one of the busiest commodity ports in the world.
Two separate port operations are located on opposite sides of the harbour, at Nelson Point and at Finucane Island. Ore from Mt Whaleback, other Newman mines and Yandi is sent to Nelson Point, while Finucane Island receives ore from the Area C and Yarrie mines.
The port is capable of handling four ships at a time, each up to 335 metres long and carrying up to 300,000 tonnes of ore.
The ore is unloaded from the trains into one of four car dumpers, screened and (in the case of Mt Whaleback and satellite ore bodies) crushed before being put into stockpiles. Each stockpile contains about 200,000 tonnes and is about 200 metres long and 15 metres high.
Dust is controlled during these operations by giant water cannons.
Giant bucketwheel reclaimers scoop up the ore from the stockpiles and transfer it to a conveyor system, which carries it to the shiploaders.
A shiploader can load at a rate of about 10,000 tonnes an hour. On average, it takes about 30 hours to load a ship and around 800 ships are loaded each year at Port Hedland.
A sophisticated conveyor system runs under the harbour, through a 1.16 kilometre tunnel that carries ore from Nelson Point to Finucane Island.
