Inside Rio Tinto’s most advanced mine

Sky News Business Editor Edward Boyd has travelled to Rio Tinto’s Gudai-Darri mine in Western Australia to see the mining corporation's newest and most technologically advanced mine.

This is the first large-scale media trip Rio Tinto has hosted since the Juukan Gorge scandal – which saw 46,000-year-old aboriginal shelters blown up by the company.

The $3.1 billion Gudai-Darri mine began its production in 2021 and reached its capacity of 43 million tonnes in less than four months.

Rio Tinto plans to invest a further $130 million – expanding the mine's output to 50 million tonnes.

Gudai-Darri uses autonomous trucks, drills, water carts and trains – as well as remote control robots that inspect conveyor belts for bearing failures and damage.

The driverless trucks only stop to be refuelled or serviced.

[bm]

This was possibly the most interesting and well made video I've seen from Sky News Australia since I started watching this channel in early 2020. I would love to watch an hour long documentary from the team who made this.

[gmv]

I get up there quite a lot, keeps me employed and paying taxes. The autonomous trains are something else, you know there’s no driver when you see the blue lights on either side of the cab. BHP’s trains are heavier and longer but they have a driver. The locomotives in the Pilbara are fully imported from North America and are huge, you won’t see them anywhere else in Australia.

[davidrayner]

Ex Rio train driver here. The trains went driverless in 2018, thus killing off what was the best job on the face of the Earth for no other reason than corporate greed and for that, I will never forgive them.

[hotwheels]

So much for value adding. Imagine if Australia turned the iron ore into steel, imagine if Australia turned the steel into usable products and then sold that overseas rather than just the raw materials.

[spacecowboy]

I think we need to help them pay for their mining industry by taxing Aussies so they can continue processing it overseas in Singapore china then sell it back to Aussies. Guys the mining industry needs help! Let's continue not taxing them

[ytonly]

Neces kopati!!! Rio Tinto MRS iz Srbije!!!

[MrSmith-veyo]

Great to get a look in so far away from the majority of us here on the east coast.

[aligungor]

Very well put together and an absolute great story about Rio. Thank you

[tonygreen]

This is great, but Australia also needs to be focused on other industries such as tech and manufacturing, so that our skillset is up to date and relevant to the modern world.

[Jack_Hagerty]

Sky news would normally be upset about somewhere using aboriginal names. But at no stage here do they highlight how little rio tinto pay in tax, they are not paying more in wages for the jobs that have been displaced and they have removed hundreds of workers. So hundreds of workers that are not employed due to automation are not paying wage tax.
No f’n issue here! Just Aussie resources being shipped away for minimal royalties and the money not filtering down to the community.

[mateusfelipe]

It would be great if the news could present data and experts to discuss how accident prevention is likely to improve with the rise of autonomous operations.

[thabobalosang]

where is this mine located, with advance eqipment❤❤❤

[Atricapilla]

Man I would love to work in one of those mines. Amazing

[jont]

Its cheaper to ship the iron ore directly to China for processing and steel making than in $18 an hr min wage Australia

[irish-thinker]

And keep all this going are guys like me, with spanners and sockets. Hd mechanics the most vital part of any mine

[MilzyWiz]

Amazing work. I can't wait to start working ❤️❤️❤️❤️

[summerbreeze]

How many times have the trains derailed? In Australia

[ezrameza]

The people driving the machines have been replaced, pretty soon the people running the computers will be replaced.

[gerardguitarist]

This needs to be outlawed. Period. Profits at the expense of providing good paying jobs to citizens is just plain criminal. What's next? Robots to monitor the autonomous machinery?

[MaxieDeca]

and then shipped off to china so they can sell it back to us