Rail operations at Andrew Forest’s Fortescue Metals Group (FMG) have been hit following the derailment of multiple ore cars over the weekend.
Key points:
- Multiple iron ore cars derailed on a Fortescue train line in the remote Pilbara region on Saturday
- Fortescue’s normal rail operations are suspended but are expected to be up and running on Wednesday
- No one was injured in the incident and Fortescue says an investigation is underway
The incident happened on Saturday about 150 kilometres south of Port Hedland in Western Australia’s remote Pilbara region.
Fortescue declined to be interviewed but in a statement a spokesperson said an internal investigation was underway to determine the cause.
“No one was injured in the incident and there is no impact to members of the community,” the spokesperson said.
December iron ore exports were not impacted, but the spokesperson declined to respond to questions about any impacts on January shipments.
Rail operations are expected to resume tomorrow.
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau has been contacted for comment.
2023’s second major derailment
It was the second major derailment to have occurred in 2023, with Rio Tinto reporting an incident 20 kilometres south of Dampier in June.
Rio Tinto said that incident involved a loaded autonomous train with 30 wagons and resulted in the train line being out of action for three days.
BHP in 2018 deliberately derailed a fully loaded train near Port Hedland after it took off without the driver.
The train was pulling 268 wagons and carrying 30,000 tonnes of iron ore between Newman and Port Hedland.
The incident is believed to have cost the mining company hundreds of millions of dollars.
Fortescue exported 192 million tonnes of iron ore last financial year.
It has rail operations running from three major mining hubs, Eliwana, Solomon and Christmas Creek.
FMG in May 2023 began production of magnetite iron ore at its Iron Bridge operation south of Port Hedland, which is transported from the mine to port via a 135-kilometre slurry pipeline.
