MELBOURNE, June 19 (Reuters) – Rio Tinto (RIO.AX) It was working Monday to recover about 30 wagons from an autonomous iron ore train that derailed in Western Australia, an accident that analysts say could disrupt its exports, although no one was injured.
The incident on Saturday was the second such event after the BHP group (BHP.AX) derailed an out-of-control iron ore train in the same region in late 2018.
“The incident involved a loaded train, with approximately 30 derailed carriages,” a spokesman said in an email, adding that the derailment took place at 6:30pm about 20km (12 miles) from Dampier in the Pilbara.
“The regulator has approved the recovery of the site and work has begun to recover the derailed railcars.”
The incident likely broke track on one of the miner’s two lines to export ports, said David Lennox, of wealth manager Fat Prophets in Sydney, which owns Rio shares.
Rio exports from the port of Dampier and through Cape Lambert in the northern part of the state of Western Australia. It was not immediately clear if train schedules to both locations or shipments from Rio to customers would be affected.
Damaged tracks usually take less than a week to clean up, the analysts said, adding that Rio is likely to be able to cover shipments from port reserves until then.
Shares in Rio, which said it was investigating the incident, fell 1.2%, along with smaller falls in other iron ore miners.
Reporting by Melanie Burton; Edited by Muralikumar Anantharaman and Clarence Fernandez
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