and iron ore miner Arrium has shipped iron ore from its northern South Australian mines out of a newly expanded Whyalla Port for the first time.
The move is the next stage in the company's ambition to become Australia's fourth largest iron ore miner,doubling iron ore sales to 12 million tonnes a year by next July or August.
It is significant because Arrium can now transport ore from its Southern Iron operations south to Whyalla,which is a distance of about 600km compared to the 2,200 kilometer travelled to ship it out of Darwin in October.
Arrium has been shipping iron ore from of its Middlebank Ranges mines near Whyalla since 2007 but only acquired the Southern Iron mines further north in 2011.
Mr Geoff Plummer CEO of Arrium said that Arrium was on time and budget for increasing its port capacity to 13 million tonne per annum and lifting export iron ore sales to 11 million tonne per annum by June next year and then 12 million tonne per annum by July-August.
