The first iron ore from Mineral Resources’ $3 billion Onslow project is ready to be exported to China on budget and slightly ahead of schedule, as managing director Chris Ellison looks towards growing the company’s infrastructure footprint.
MinRes announced on Tuesday that two transhippers are now loading iron ore aboard a bulk carrier anchored 40km off the Port of Ashburton in the West Pilbara, a milestone it previously predicted to reach by “mid-2024”.
The Onslow project is 60 per cent-owned by MinRes and the ore is destined for the steel mills of Baowu, one of the minority joint venture partners in the project.
Onslow is set to employ 1600 people at its peak and the operation’s first phase aims to pump out about 35 million tonnes of the steelmaking commodity a year.
The unique aspect of Onslow is its infrastructure. The project has a 150km private haul road — set for completion in October — to get ore from pit to port.
Once that ore reaches port MinRes is establishing a fleet of transhippers to export it.
Transhippers don’t require a deep water port to be loaded, unlike most bulk carriers used by WA iron ore miners, which removes the need to build a new port facility.
MinRes has said the Onslow infrastructure will unlock previously stranded iron ore deposits in the West Pilbara region.
Mr Ellison told The West Australian he would “absolutely” be looking to pick up transhipping work with third-party producers.
“MinRes over the last 30 years has been developing from mining services, we’re now getting into long-term infrastructure ownership,” he said.
“We can take that transhipping concept to the world.”
Mr Ellison said the Onslow project reaching export-ready status had been a decade in the making.
“I’ve been trying to develop this Onslow iron project since 2014 and it got me through to about 2021 where I finally sort of nutted out how to do it,” he said.
“In 2021, MinRes breathed new life into it and in less than three years we have planned, designed and have now delivered first ore on ship.”
Beyond Onslow-specific infrastructure Mr Ellison earlier this month said the company will run its own airline — MinRes Air — as part of a broader recruitment drive.
“I’ve the heard the odd comment going ‘it’ll never work, it’ll fail’. What they need to understand is I’ve got a bigger balance sheet than Qantas,” he told The West.
“I’m not selling seats … I’m making sure I don’t have to keep shutting my plants off at mining operations to change my people over on crew change, that’s going to save me tens — if not hundreds — of millions of dollars a year.
“The other thing that’s critical for me is we care about our people an awful lot at MinRes.”
Reports emerged on Monday that Qantas pilots are quitting the airline to join MinRes Air.
The reporter visited the Onslow project as a guest of Mineral Resources.