Mt Newman is an open-cut mine.
Newman Operations consisting - Mt Whaleback, Orebodies 24, 25, 29, 30, 31, 32 and 35 and are open-cut.
All mining areas within WAIO currently operate using conventional open-cut mining methods. Iron ore is a bulk commodity, and the orebodies are large and near surface, with a relatively thin overburden. The orebodies are generally shallow dipping, and most parts of the orebodies occur within depths of 200 to 300m from surface, thus leading to low strip ratios. These characteristics make the WAIO operations suitable for open-cut mining methods including drilling, blasting, loading and hauling.
WAIO open-cut mining uses face shovels, front-end loaders or backhoe excavators. The full bench is drilled and blasted for a 12 m height, sampled three times in 4 m increments and three 4 m flitches are then mined.
Drilling is separate for contour areas and production areas. Contour drilling is completed using smaller drills on contoured areas of the natural ground and production areas are relatively flat-lying large working areas drilled using larger production drills. Bulk explosive products, such as ammonium nitrate and fuel or emulsion, are mixed on the bench using Mobile Processing Units (MPUs) before being loaded into the drill holes.
Ore and Waste haulage is done with both manually operated and autonomous haul trucks. Waste is hauled directly to the adjacent waste storage areas either ex-pit (on ........