RIO Rio Tinto Plc

   By Oliver Griffin 
 

Rio Tinto PLC (RIO.LN) said Friday that it has been accredited by the Office of the National Rail Safety Regulator in Australia to operate autonomous trains at its iron-ore business in Pilbara.

The mining company said its AutoHaul project--in which it will use a fleet of autonomous trains to transport iron ore to its port facilities in Pilbara, Western Australia--is on schedule to be completed by the end of 2018. Rio Tinto said it will phase the deployment of the trains across its rail network in the lead-up to full commissioning.

Once commissioned, the network will be the world's first heavy-haul, long-distance autonomous rail operation, Rio Tinto said.

The mining company said it still expects to ship between 330 million and 340 million tons of iron ore from Pilbara in 2018, subject to market and weather conditions.

Write to Oliver Griffin at oliver.griffin@dowjones.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 18, 2018 02:33 ET (06:33 GMT)

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