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Mines/Australia

Hamersley Mines - Mount Tom Price

Hamersley Mines - Mount Tom Price, Australia, open pit, mining iron ore.

Why Hamersley Mines - Mount Tom Price is famous

Rio Tinto's Hamersley mines in the Pilbara, including Tom Price, produced 229.6 Mt in 2025 (224.8 Mt in 2024) on a 100% basis. Mount Tom Price began operations in 1966, the first of Hamersley Iron's mines. Its lease sits under the Iron Ore (Hamersley Range) Agreement Act 1963. Paraburdoo followed in 1974.1,2,3

Story cards

Timeline

  1. 1952Lang Hancock spots iron ore in the Hamersley Range4
  2. 1960Iron ore export embargo lifted4

What kind of deposit

Banded iron formation (Superior and Algoma types)

Hamersley Mines - Mount Tom Price today

Where iron ore is mined todayMining in Australia

Where next

Mines

Came out ofHamersley Mines - ParaburdooParaburdoo opened in 1974, after Mount Tom Price in 1966.3Same kind of depositKoolyanobbingIron ore from the Pilbara's Tom Price to the Yilgarn's Koolyanobbing near Southern Cross.1

Events

Came out ofIron ore export embargo liftedMount Tom Price began in 1966, the first of Hamersley Iron's mines.1HereLang Hancock spots iron ore in the Hamersley RangeHancock spotted a black outcrop of iron ore over the Hamersley Range.4

Places

Located inTom PriceHamersley Mines - Mount Tom Price is about 7 km from Tom Price.1

Deposit types

An example ofBanded iron formation (Superior and Algoma types)Hamersley Mines - Mount Tom Price belongs to the banded iron formation family of deposits.5

Sources

  1. Form 20-F for the year ended 31 December 2025 Rio Tinto (SEC)
  2. data/minerals/operations.csv Prospector Trails (internal)
  3. Annual Report on Form 20-F for 2025 Rio Tinto plc (SEC)
  4. Lang Hancock (Mining and Energy Western Australia exhibition) State Library of Western Australia
  5. Mineral Deposit Models (Bulletin 1693, Cox and Singer, eds., 1986) US Geological Survey

From the Prospector Trails mining history dataset: each fact links to the source it was checked against. Figures are as the source gives them, in the money of their day. Not investment advice.

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Cover photos from Wikimedia Commons: Autonomous trucks by RobSimmons223311, CC BY-SA 4.0; Conveyors, rail and ports by Kabelleger / David Gubler, CC BY-SA 4.0. Pictures: Kirunavaara gruva, Kiruna., Fotograf okänd, / Europeana (Public Domain Mark 1.0).