Hamersley Iron Essay

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Guest Speaker Kevin Say – Hamersley Iron Draft 2
Kevin was employed by Gimas Australia on the construction of Lostock dam near Maitland, Gimas Australia had a contract with Hamersley Iron in Western Australia. They asked him to go to Western Australia to work for them. When he heard the accommodation would be in a caravan about 16 miles out of Paraburdoo, in the Pilbara, he decided to apply directly with Hamersley Iron for work. He started work there as a grader driver in 1971 when the basic wage was $43 per week, Hamersley Iron offered $209.95 for a 60 hour fortnight. Before their family of four could move to Paraburdoo they had to wait for a house to be built. During this time Hamersley rang Kevin’s wife each week and when the time came …show more content…

They would bring a bus load of Japanese business men to inspect the mine. It became a regular occasion for these groups to visit the Says following their tour of the mine.
The company didn’t want to keep two lots of machinery, one at Paraburdoo and one at Tom Price, plus store two lots of parts. They decided to keep the Marion shovel at Tom Price and move a P & H shovel from Tom Price to Paraburdoo. At the time it was the biggest load in the Southern Hemisphere, it was 500 tons, it was towed up over Mount Nameless, they would have two Mack 600's pulling it, they had two A24 rubber tyred dozers pushing it on the bitumen when it wasn’t on the bitumen they would push it with D9 dozers along the road. It took three days to move the shovel from Tom Price to Paraburdoo.
In 1972 the price of iron ore dropped dramatically, the Japanese order was decreased by 40%. The staff were called together and told they were closing down Paraburdoo, two took a redundancy and Hamersley Iron found work for 400 people carrying out maintenance, 64 families stayed there keeping things running. In mid-1973 the recession was over, Japan wanted more iron ore and Paraburdoo went back into production. 284 car trains were loaded, they actually weighed the iron ore, 98.99 tons per wagon, two cars would come in and 200 tons would be dumped in less than 84 seconds. There was a compressor car at the end that kept the brakes

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