Fortescue’s second-quarter iron ore shipments rise 2%

Reuters | January 21, 2026 | 2:03 pm Top Companies Australia Iron Ore

The Iron Bridge facility produces a high-grade wet concentrate product which is transported to Port Hedland through a 135-kilometre-long specialist slurry pipeline. Credit: Fortescue

Australia’s Fortescue posted a 2% rise in second-quarter iron ore shipments on Thursday, supported by the resilient performance of its Iron Bridge project alongside an uptick in output from its hematite operations.

Shipments from the company’s flagship Iron Bridge project in Western Australia’s Pilbara region rose 44% from last year to 2.2 million metric tonnes during the quarter, as the magnetite-focused operation continues to work towards achieving nameplate capacity by fiscal 2028.

Fortescue’s hematite operations shipped 48.3 Mt in the December quarter, compared to 47.9 Mt last year.

The world’s fourth-largest iron ore miner shipped 50.5 Mt of the steelmaking commodity in the three months ended December 31, compared with 49.4 Mt shipped a year ago, beating Visible Alpha consensus estimate of 50.3 Mt.

(By Rajasik Mukherjee and Nikita Maria Jino; Editing by Alan Barona)