The hubs' (Cloudbreak and Chichester combined) annual production rate, as of January 2013[update], is 90 million tonnes of iron ore.

Instead, Fortescue decided to develop its Christmas Creek deposit, at a cost of US$360 million, by building a mine and process plant there and linking it to its existing rail network.

[11] Mining at Cloudbreak was temporarily suspended on 24 December 2010 after a fatality as a sign of respect and to ensure the safety of the workers.

[13] The approval of the A$2 billion project through the Minister for the Environment, Ian Campbell, was criticised because of a number of endangered species in the area of the future mine, among them the rare night parrot.

The occurrence of the night parrot in the future mining area was discovered during a 2005 survey, at Minga Well on 12 April 2005, commissioned by FMG, which was carried out by two contract biologists who sighted a small group of the birds.