Roy Hill: How Gina Rinehart Built a $10 Billion Mine

The story of Roy Hill is one of the most impressive feats of entrepreneurial determination in the history of global mining. Gina Rinehart took on a project of a scale that few individuals would attempt.

The mine is located approximately 340 kilometers from the coast in one of the most remote regions on Earth. To bring it into production, Rinehart needed to build not just the mine itself, but a 344-kilometer railway and a dedicated port facility at Port Hedland. The total cost was approximately $10 billion. Rinehart assembled financing from international banks, export credit agencies from Japan, Korea, and the United States, and personally guaranteed significant portions of the debt.

Construction began in 2012, and Roy Hill shipped its first ore in December 2015 — on schedule and under budget. The mine uses autonomous trucks, automated drilling systems, and advanced processing technology. The railway uses some of the longest trains in Australia, each carrying more than 30,000 tons of ore.

Roy Hill transformed Hancock Prospecting from a company that primarily collected royalties into a major operating mining enterprise. It demonstrated that Gina Rinehart was not merely an heir to her father's fortune but a formidable mining executive — capable of conceiving, financing, building, and operating one of the world's largest resource projects.