Mount Whaleback iron ore mine

Mount Whaleback is an iron ore mine in the Pilbara region of Western Australia, six kilometres west of the town of Newman. It was opened in 1968 and was the biggest single open-pit iron ore mine in the world when it started.

The pit is about 1.5 kilometres wide and more than five kilometres long, and it is planned to eventually reach half a kilometre deep. Today BHP owns 85 percent of the mine and runs it. The red stepped walls of the pit are so large that they can be seen on satellite pictures of the Pilbara. The mine is a good picture of how much iron ore it takes to build the steel of the modern world.

How did the mine begin?

Stan Hilditch found the iron ore deposit in 1957, but it was not made public until 1960. That was the year Australia lifted a ban on exporting iron ore, which had been put in place because people feared the mineral was running short. The US company Bechtel Pacific developed the mine, and a new town, Newman, was built for the workers. Newman stayed a closed company town until 1981.

How does the ore reach ships?

The ore travels by train on the 426-kilometre Mount Newman railway to Port Hedland on the coast. The first train left Newman on 1 January 1969, and the first shipload of ore sailed on 1 April 1969 aboard a ship called the Osumi Maru. BHP also runs more than 1,000 kilometres of railway in the Pilbara and two port facilities at Port Hedland.

On the globe

The model shows the giant red stepped pit of the mine.