The Karara mine is a large iron mine located in the Mid West region of

Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to th ...

. Karara has estimated reserves of 2 billion tonnes of ore grading 35.5% iron metal. It is one of the few

magnetite Magnetite is a mineral and one of the main iron ores, with the chemical formula Fe2+Fe3+2O4. It is one of the oxides of iron, and is ferrimagnetic; it is attracted to a magnet and can be magnetized to become a permanent magnet itself. With the ...

producers in Western Australia. It is owned by

Ansteel Group Anshan Iron and Steel Group Corporation (Ansteel Group in short; less popularly Angang Group) is a Chinese state-owned steel maker. The corporation was under the supervision of State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the S ...

(52.16%) and Gindalbie Metals (47.84%). The mine is operated by Karara Mining Limited.

Timeline

* In 2011, steelwork for the Karara project was delayed by major floods in

Thailand Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is bo ...

. * In 2014, production was increased by over 35% in the June quarter, with more than 2 million tons of

iron ore Iron ores are rocks and minerals from which metallic iron can be economically extracted. The ores are usually rich in iron oxides and vary in color from dark grey, bright yellow, or deep purple to rusty red. The iron is usually found in the fo ...

being shipped. Despite the increase the project was still not making a profit.

Transport

The Karara mine is linked to the

Arc Infrastructure Arc Infrastructure (previously known as Brookfield Rail and WestNet Rail) is a transport infrastructure owner and access provider in Western Australia with a long-term lease on the network from the Government of Western Australia. It operates a ...

network by the long Karara railway. The ore would be initially transported by a narrow gauge railway to the existing port of Geraldton in quantities up to 10 million tonnes per annum (Mtpa). When a

standard gauge A standard-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge of . The standard gauge is also called Stephenson gauge (after George Stephenson), International gauge, UIC gauge, uniform gauge, normal gauge and European gauge in Europe, and SGR in Ea ...

railway is built to a new port at Oakajee, the tonnage would increase to at least 30 Mtpa. The common part of the narrow gauge and

routes will be

dual gauge In railway engineering, "gauge" is the transverse distance between the inner surfaces of the heads of two rails, which for the vast majority of railway lines is the number of rails in place. However, it is sometimes necessary for track to c ...

. The Karara branch joins the main line just north of Morawa.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Karara Mine Iron ore mines in Western Australia Shire of Perenjori Surface mines in Australia