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The Chichester Hub expansion is designed to take Fortescue’s production capacity from 55 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) to 90mtpa, plus an additional five million tonnes per annum from a joint venture with BC Iron.
The Chichester Hub comprises the Cloudbreak and Christmas Creek mines. Cloudbreak was Fortescue’s first mine, constructed between 2006 and 2008. One ore processing facility OPF) exists at Cloudbreak, while an additional two exist at Christmas Creek.
Construction at the first OPF at Christmas Creek began in March 2010 and was completed just over a year later in April 2011. First ore was fed through the second OPF in September 2012, 14 months after construction began.
Additional infrastructure to support the increased production such as stockyard expansion, power station construction, a remote crushing hub and associated conveyor infrastructure has been complete. A wet front end is also being fitted to the existing OPF at Cloudbreak to increase its production capability.
“The construction of the second OPF was a tremendous team effort, our primary contractor for this project, CSI, worked hand in hand with Fortescue to complete within fourteen months.
“The entire Christmas Creek story is really quite remarkable, from March 2010 to now there has been two OPFs and all the associated infrastructure built and completed. This is an incredible speed by which to be working at.” - Chichester Project Director Mark Skelton.
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