The Sino iron project geologically lies near the George Palmer deposit, which is situated within the Hamerseley basin.

The Hamersley Basin, located in the Pilbara Block in northwestern Western Australia, is about 500 km long and 250 km wide, with a west-north westerly elongation. The basin is defined by the extent of the Hamersley Group sedimentary and volcanic rocks and contains extensive banded iron formations (BIFs) and large hematite-goethite iron deposits, which occur with the BIF units.

Archean (42800 Ma) granite-greenstone outcrops over most of the northern half of the Pilbara Block and is unconformably overlain by the Hamersley Basin in the southern half of the block except for a few exposures in inliers or domes within the basin.

The Hamersley Group conformably overlies the Fortescue Group and is conformably overlain by the Turee Creek Group. It is approximately 2.5 km thick and consists of four important iron formations separated by sequences of dolomites, shales and volcanics.

Ore is mined using conventional blast and haul method with waste rock materials deposited external to the pit in allocated waste dump areas. The mining fleet currently consists of 4 excavators and 18 haul trucks, increasing up to 6 excavators and 30 haul trucks within two years of operating.

The PCF consists of four crushing units (located inside the pit), crushed ore stockpile, associated conveyors, and transfer stations. Each crusher has a design throughput of 4,250 tonnes per hour, with a combined annual process capability of up to 85.4 million tonnes (with 77 Mtpa being the nominal throughput). The PCF’s primary function is to break down the mined magnetite ore from heavy rock to smaller sized pebbles (>250mm to <1200mm). The crushed ore is transported to the coarse ore stockpile by belt conveyors and tripper assemblies.

The concentrator plant is a two stage grinding process followed by magnetic separation where the ore is separated from waste material and sent to the thickeners before being piped to the Port. During operations, dust emissions from the
Process Plant will be minimal, as it will operate as a ‘wet process’ with large volumes of water required throughout the concentrating, thickening, filtration and dewatering process.

CPM built the Pilbara’s first greenfield port in more than 40 years for the project. Unlike traditional iron ore ports in the Pilbara which require deep-water channels to accommodate the massive tidal movements, we currently use a transhipment method. A first in Western Australia, transhipment sees the product first loaded onto a barge at the loading berth along the breakwater. The barge is then towed offshore where a transhipper loads product onto larger ocean-going vessels.