Fortescue faced its fair share of wild weather impacting operations over the past three months, but the Western Australian iron ore giant isn’t fazed.
Total iron ore shipments across Fortescue’s operations stood at 46.1 million tonnes (Mt) in the third quarter of the 2024–25 financial year (Q3 FY25 ), marking a six per cent increase on Q3 FY24, with shipments in the prior corresponding period affected by an ore car derailment.
Shipments in Q3 FY25 were not without challenges, being impacted by several significant weather events, with the Port of Port Hedland closed for five days.
Total iron ore shipments of 143.2Mt in the nine months to March 31 2025 were four per cent higher than the prior corresponding period, and a record for the company.
“We achieved another solid quarterly production result, shipping 46.1 million tonnes of iron ore while maintaining our outstanding safety performance,” Fortescue Metals chief executive officer Dino Otranto said.
“This was a particularly impressive achievement, as the team safely and effectively navigated several significant weather events in the quarter. With record shipments achieved for the nine months leading up to 31 March 2025, we remain on track to deliver on our full year guidance.
“During the quarter, we also completed the acquisition of Red Hawk Mining which supports our strategy to continually optimise our iron ore operations in the Pilbara, giving us the flexibility to enhance our future mine plan.”
Following an off-market takeover offer initially announced on January 28 2025, Fortescue completed the acquisition of Red Hawk Mining Limited for $254 million in March.
The acquisition will help enable integration of the Blacksmith iron ore project into Fortescue’s broader life of mine plan.
