Minerals & Mining Consumables

FreightLink’s bulk minerals services between mines on the corridor and the Port of Darwin are supporting the fast-developing mining industry along the Adelaide–Darwin rail corridor, with new opportunities also emerging to channel mine products through both Darwin and Adelaide-based ports.

Prominent Hill Mine | Bootu Creek Mine | Frances Creek Mine

Prominent Hill Mine

This project to move around 250,000 tonnes of copper-gold concentrates a year from Oxiana¹s Prominent Hill Mine southeast of Coober Pedy in South Australia¹s outback and on to ships at the Port of Darwin will start in July 2008.

Mining company Oxiana awarded the contract to FreightLink which, in conjunction with WA-based bulk freight logistics and port services provider Giacci Bros and Darwin Ports Corporation, will expedite direct to port delivery of the minerals.

Giacci will take the copper-gold concentrate by road from Prominent Hill to the rail siding at Wirrida, where it will be loaded on to FreightLink rail services going north to the Port of Darwin. Darwin Ports Corporation will load the concentrate on to ships bound for copper smelters in Asia.

The contract is for 10 years.

Bootu Creek Mine

FreightLink’s five-year contract with OM Manganese Limited (OMM) to move manganese ore from Bootu Creek (110 kilometres north of Tennant Creek) to the Port of Darwin is proceeding apace. By April 2007, a year into the contract, around 400,000 tonnes had been transported 60 km by road to the Muckaty rail siding and loaded into wagons for the 822 km trip to the port. Once at the port, the manganese is stockpiled and loaded on to Handymax bulkships at the rate of approximately two ships a month.

FreightLink provides four dedicated services a week to channel the manganese to the Port of Darwin. OMM provides purpose-designed hopper wagons and loads the manganese on to the train at the rail siding. Darwin Ports Corporation provides unloading facilities and the workforce at the port.

OMH is targeting more than 500,000 tonnes for 2007 and is pursuing further exploration to extend the mine’s operating life and increase production, which may see the haulage task increase.

Frances Creek Mine

On 18 July, FreightLink began hauling 1.5 million tonnes of bulk iron ore a year for Territory Resources from its Frances Creek mine (25 km north of Pine Creek) to the bulk minerals discharge facility near the Port of Darwin.

Under the contract, FreightLink provides seven dedicated round-trip services a week each way between the Union Reef siding and Darwin. Each train conveys around 2600 tonnes, with the task increasing progressively to more than 4000 tonnes.

As a result of the project, freight trains into Darwin have increased from 10 a week (in 2004) to 32 a week.