Riding a commodities boom, Gina Rinehart, Australia's iron ore magnate is set to become the world's richest person after her fortune more than doubled in the past year to 6.8 billion pounds.

Rinehart, 57, head of Perth-based Hancock Prospecting is on course to overtake Carlos Slim, the Mexican magnate worth 46 billion pounds ($73.44 billion), and Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, who is worth 35 billion pounds ($55.80 billion), Citigroup has estimated.

She is currently the richest person in Australia and predicted to become the wealthiest in the world, The Telegraph reported.

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Citigroup calculates that three coal and iron ore projects she is developing will lead her to overtake Slim and Gates mainly because she owns her companies outright and has no shareholders.

Rinehart is barely known outside of the business community. In 1952 her father, Lang Hancock, discovered the world's largest iron ore deposit in Australia's Pilbara region.

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She married twice. Her second husband was Frank Rinehart, an American lawyer, who died in 1990, the report said.

The world's wealthiest woman is Christy Walton, the widow of John Dalton, the Walmart heir, who is worth $26.5 billion.