BHP needs to expand its Pilbara operations to sustain production over the next five to 10 years as its Yandi mine is exhausted, and so the South Flank expansion is targeting the Northern Flank operation, which is a deposit immediately south of the existing Mining Area C.

The iron ore giant’s original proposal to revise the Mining Area C operation to include the Northern Flank satellite ore body in June 2016 involved an initial developmental  disturbance envelope of 19,671 hectares.

While the proposal is still being assessed through the Public Environmental Review stage, BHP has been granted approval to change the total required disturbance area to 16,257ha, a 17.35% drop.

According to BHP’s documents, a key reason for the change is to further mitigate potential impacts to the threatened Ghost bat and other vulnerable species such as the northern quoll, Pilbara leaf nosed bat, rainbow bee-eater, peregrine falcon and Pilbara flat-headed blind snake.

The South Flank iron ore expansion will involve construction of run-of-mine pads, overland conveyors to a coarse ore stockpile and ore handling plant infrastructure at Mining Area C, and an upgrade to the existing stockyards and outflow facilities.

A duplication of the existing rail loop will also be built as well as a second train loadout, with supporting non-process infrastructure to support the new mining areas.