Rio Tinto has achieved the significant milestone of loading the first shipment of iron ore from its expanded port, rail and mine operations in Australia. This marks the commencement of commissioning of the expansion program, which will see overall capacity for Rio Tinto's iron ore operations in Western Australia increase to 290 million tonnes a year.

The Tai Shan, a Rio Tinto Marine-chartered Cape-size class vessel, has embarked from the new Cape Lambert B wharf carrying the first shipment, a cargo of 165,000 tonnes of Pilbara Blend fines. The shipment is bound for Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corporation's Kimitsu works in Tokyo.

Rio Tinto Iron Ore chief executive Mr Andrew Harding said "The 290 project is the largest integrated mining project in Australia. The delivery of 290 ahead of its original schedule and within budget is a testament to our focus on value-driven growth of our low cost operations. Given the demanding operating environment in Western Australia over the recent period, this stands as a noteworthy achievement. I pay credit to the efforts and commitment of our employees, contractors and partners in the Robe River Joint Venture for what has been a genuine team effort. Our focus will now be to ensure the ramp up to full run rate is achieved safely and efficiently. As always, we will continue to seek further productivity improvements from our fully-integrated Pilbara system, including our industry leading Mine of the Future™ technology program, in order to maximize the return on our investment."

The phase two expansion of the port, rail and power infrastructure to 360 million tonnes per annum is underway. A number of options for mine capacity growth are under evaluation including incremental tonnes from further low-cost productivity improvements, expansion of existing mines and the potential development of new mines.