Australia's Roy Hill iron ore mine on schedule for Sept 2015

(Adds details about schedule, iron ore prices)

By Rebekah Kebede

PERTH, Australia, Feb 18 (Reuters) - Australian billionaire Gina Rinehart's $10 billion Roy Hill iron ore mine is on track to begin exporting in September 2015 and will have shipped 5 million tonnes by the end of the year, a company executive said on Wednesday.

"We're certainly on budget. We remain ahead of overall schedule," Garry Torte, Chief Financial Officer of Roy Hill, told Reuters.

The 55-million-tonnes a year mine is expected to ramp up ahead of the company's original 30-month timeline, Korte said.

After a string of safety incidents at the mine site, local media recently reported that parts of the project have fallen behind schedule.

But Korte said the time lost as a result of those incidents had been made up by contractor Samsung C&T.

The mine is set to come online as iron ore is trading near six-year lows at just below $64 a tonne and amid a deepening glut stoked by low-cost, global miners ramping up supply to ship more to China. The price has fallen a further 11 percent this year, stretching last year's 47 percent slide.

Korte said that Roy Hill sits in the bottom quartile of iron ore producers and as a result is protected from dips in the iron ore price.

"We're very comfortable with prices where they are now," Korte said.

Rinehart's Hancock Prospecting Pty Ltd owns 70 percent of the project, with Japanese trading house Marubeni Corp holding 15 percent, South Korean steel giant POSCO (KSE: 005490.KS - news) 12.5 percent and Taiwan's China Steel Corp (LSE: CNSD.L - news) 2.5 percent.

Once it ramps up, Roy Hill will be Australia's fourth largest iron ore producer, adding to a looming supply glut built up by bigger rivals Rio Tinto (Xetra: 855018 - news) , BHP Billiton (NYSE: BBL - news) , and Fortescue Metals Group. (Reporting By Rebekah Kebede in Perth, additional reporting by Manolo Serapio in Singapore; Editing by Michael Perry)