Port
Herb Elliott Port is currently a 55 million tonne per annum iron ore handling facility located in Port Hedland, the export hub of Western Australia.
The site sits on two million square metres of reclaimed land and was designed and constructed with expandability as a priority. The greenfields site allows both current operations and expansion to run concurrently without disruption.
The infrastructure at Herb Elliott Port comprises some of the largest
and most technologically sophisticated equipment in the world with both inload and outload rates the highest of any bulk port in Australia.
Herb Elliott Port consists of two key components, the inload circuit where iron ore is unloaded from trains and stockpiled, and the outload circuit where iron ore is reclaimed and, before being loaded onto ships, is verified for quality via a robotic sample station.
At the train unloader, a rack and pinion Indexer unit takes control of the loaded rake and pushes it into the train unloader cell two cars at a time. Cars are tipped two at a time every 90 seconds, the iron ore is dumped into an apron feeder and transported via a conveyor belt moving at 5.5 metres per second to the stackers.
The operational design capacity of both stackers is 11,080 tonnes of iron ore per hour which stack the iron ore into 12 separate stockpiles, catering for different types of Fortescue and third party product.
The reclaimer, with a design capacity rate of 13,500 tonnes per hour, picks up the iron ore from the stockpiles and then transports it via conveyor again to the shiploader. Fortescue’s shiploader is the only manned infrastructure on the site to ensure the cargo is safely spread according to a ship’s loading plan.
Fortescue’s two loading berths efficiently allow an additional vessel to start loading immediately after another is completed.
Fortescue is committed to supporting the Town of Port Hedland and ensuring our operations add value to the local community by funding community initiatives, to further develop a sense of place and amenity.
Fortescue also funds a community grants program to support local initiatives by the Hedland community. Local water and air quality is also a priority for Fortescue, who continuously monitor and measure the environment to maintain a safe and sustainable level of operation.