Australian mining giant Rio Tinto has made a rare spot offer of Robe River iron ore fines via tender -- its first since September 2013 -- sources invited to bid for the cargo said Monday.

In a tender issued late Friday, the company is offering a 170,000 mt cargo of 57%-Fe Robe River iron ore fines for loading over February 10-19 from Cape Lambert in the Pilbara region, the iron ore production hub located in Western Australia. The tender closes at at 1.30 pm Beijing time (0530 GMT) Monday.

Robe River fines have not been commonly seen in the spot market as the majority of such material is reserved for Rio Tinto's term customers.

But the miner's customers said Monday there are expecting to see more of the product being offered on the spot market this year due to the company's planned production ramp-up.

"Rio Tinto will produce a lot more iron ore as it has projected this year, so I'm definitely expecting more Robe River fines being made available through spot tenders," a steelmaker in central China said.

Rio Tinto is currently undergoing a ramp-up toward consistent production capacity of 290 million mt/year by the second half of 2014, up from 237 million mt/year of capacity previously.

The miner produced a record 70.4 million mt of iron ore over October-December 2013 from its global operations, up 6% year on year and 3% higher than the July-September quarter, the company said in a report released January 16. Of the total, 66.5 million mt of iron ore came from Rio Tinto's Western Australian operations.

In 2013, the miner sold just one Robe River fines cargo on the spot market on September 24. The 56.5%-Fe cargo was sold at $120.23/dmt CFR China to an unknown buyer. Comprising 170,000 mt of fines, that parcel was scheduled to load from Cape Lambert over October 7-16.