Iron ore machinery

Iron ore

The Northern Territory contains a number of iron ore deposits with three periods of mining from 1967-1974, 2007-2014 and 2020-present producing more than 19 million tonnes of iron ore.
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Total production
19.45 Mt of hematite ore
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Annual production
46,562 t 2023-24
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Remaining JORC resources
~100 Mt of DSO iron ore (>55% Fe)
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Value of production
$5.6 million 2023-24

Prospectivity

The Northern Territory hosts more than 1 billion tonnes of JORC-compliant iron ore resources.

Most iron ore production has occurred from the Frances Creek deposits near Pine Creek, which are hydrothermally-enriched hematite deposits within the Pine Creek Orogen. The largest iron ore resources and most current production is located within large oolitic hematite deposits of the Roper iron field in the McArthur Basin.

Large iron ore resources occur in the Roper iron field, hosted in the Roper Group of the McArthur Basin, south of the Roper River. The field contains more than 1 billion tonnes of moderate grade iron ore, with around 85 million tonnes of higher grade direct shipping ore (57-59% Fe) at the Roper Valley and Roper Bar deposits. Mining occurred at Roper Bar in 2013-2014, with export through Bing Bong port. Roper Bar iron ore mine recommenced production in October 2020. Iron ore in the Roper field varies from massive to oolitic and pisolitic haematite, within the Mesoproterozoic Sherwin Ironstone Member.

Pine Creek Orogen hosts a number of high grade and low tonnage hydrothermally-enriched hematite deposits. This includes the Frances Creek iron ore deposits, which were mined from 1967-1974 and 2007-2014. In June 2021, Linecrest Pty Ltd exported a shipment of iron ore from stockpiles at Frances Creek that had been beneficiated using automated ore sorting technology.

Historical mining of gold- and copper-bearing ironstone at Tennant Creek has produced tailings containing up to 70% magnetite at a number of sites that are located near the Alice Springs-Darwin railway line and existing infrastructure. The Warrego Rehabilitation Project began production in October 2024 and has a 3.5 year operational life.

Other iron resources are associated with magnetite-bearing skarns and gabbro-hosted vanadium-rich magnetite in the Aileron Province.

Read the iron ore factsheet PDF (2.9 MB)

Projects

Geological ProvinceNameResourceCompany
Warramunga Province Warrego Rehabilitation Project9.11 Mt @ 35% Fe,  0.21% Cu, 0.48 ppm AuNorthern Iron Ltd
McArthur Basin Roper Bar279 Mt @ 41.5% Fe inc. 28 Mt DSO @ 59.4% Fe Nathan River Resources Pty Ltd
Geological ProvinceNameResourceCompany
Warramunga Province Peko Tailings 3.75 Mt of magnetite-rich tailings
(incl. 3.62 Mt @ 1.1g/t Au, 0.22% Cu, 0.1% Co)
Elmore Ltd (under administration)
Geological ProvinceNameResourceCompany
McArthur Basin Roper Valley529.3 Mt @ 42.9% Fe incl. 41.1 Mt @ 57.8% Fe Northern Territory Iron Ore Pty Ltd 
Pine Creek Orogen Frances Creek 23Mt @53% Fe Linecrest Pty Ltd
Warramunga ProvinceRover 15.58 Mt @ 1.76 g/t Au, 1.49% Cu, 0.07% Co, 23.2% magnetiteCastile Resources Ltd
Geological ProvinceNameResourceCompany
Pine Creek Orogen Yarram 12.7 Mt at 55.4% Fe CuFe Ltd
Geological ProvinceNameResourceCompany
Aileron Province Mount Peake 160.4 Mt @ 0.28% V2O5, 5.3% TiO2, 23% Fe Tivan Ltd
Ngalia Basin Centralian Project 14.1 Mt @ 27.1% Fe Mioxide NT Pty Ltd

Reports

  • NTGS Report 13 – Iron ore, manganese and bauxite deposits of the Northern Territory (2001)
  • Glass and de Chaeney, AGES 2014 Abstracts Volume – Frances Creek iron ore deposit - a unique style of iron mineralisation?

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