More upward pressure on global iron ore prices with reports from Perth that Rio Tinto has suffered its second serious fire this year in an iron ore screening facility at one of its port facilities in the Pilbara.
Rio hasn’t confirmed it but the Perth reports say the fire to damaged a screening facility at East Intercourse Island, part of its Dampier port operation in the Pilbara.
The screening facility sorts lump iron ore from fines and is essential for Rio to ship its various products to customers.
The latest fire comes after a blaze damaged a similar facility at its Cape Lambert port operation in January, knocking out some of the mining giant’s loading operations.
Those operations at Cape Lambert were partially damaged in Cyclone veronica in late March.
Rio was forced to close its Cape Lambert A terminal, which comprises four berths, after Cyclone Veronica damaged essential infrastructure.
The miner said last week that the damage at Port Lambert A, together with a fire at the screening plant at the port in January, would cost it about 14 million tonnes in lost shipping output this year.
But that figure is now likely to rise following the latest incident and the continuing outage at Cape Lambert A.
BHP last week put its lost tonnage because of the storm at around 10 million tonnes.
Vale, the big Brazilian exporter has already cut its estimated 2019 exports by 50 to 75 million tonnes because of the January 25 mine dam disaster and the shutdown on a number of other dams and their mines in the company’s southern mining complex.
This explains why the price of iron ore topped $US95 a tonne in Asia on Monday for 62 Fe ore delivered to northern China.
The price dipped 45 cents a tonne on Tuesday to end at $US94.85 a tonne.
Meanwhile, another cyclone off the Pilbara coast is being watched by the companies and port managers.
Tropical Cyclone Wallace was 590 km north northwest of Exmouth and 620 km northwest of Karratha and
moving west southwest at 15 kilometres per hour early Wednesday.
The Weather Bureau in Perth said Wallace is expected to weaken today and become a rain depression as it moves further away from the WA coast.
