More headaches for Mineral Resources at crucial Onslow Iron haul road with Cyclone Sean causing damage

Heavy rainfall has damaged Mineral Resources’ $2.6 billion Onslow Iron haul road and eaten into an iron ore production guidance buffer by halting shipments for eight days. The 150km private road that links MinRes’ most important mining operation to port needs to be fixed, a MinRes spokesman confirmed. “Rectification works to limited sections of the road seal are being carried out to repair flood damage caused by Severe Tropical Cyclone Sean and a separate heavy rainfall event on 25 January 2025,” he said. “Haulage is continuing under traffic control measures and there is no change to the project’s annual volume guidance. “Onslow Iron’s haul road has been in operational use by the MinRes road train fleet across the entire 150 kilometre route since late October.” MinRes sold a 49 per cent stake in the Onslow haul road to Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners in September for $1.3b. But $200m of that windfall will be forfeited if MinRes does not transport an approximate minimum of 8.75 million wet metric tonnes of ore via the haul road during any quarter before 30 June next year. Onslow Iron is set to produce between 10.5mt and 11.7mt of iron ore this financial year. The haul road, which enables MinRes to truck iron ore from the Ken’s Bore mine directly to the Port of Ashburton, has been plagued by numerous problems. This includes a spate of jumbo truck rollovers, a RSPCA-led investigation into cattle deaths, and a messy contract dispute with a Queensland-based firm that was involved in building the pit-to-ship haul road and its associated infrastructure. Once the Onslow Iron product gets to port via the haul road, a small fleet of transhippers shuttle the steel-making commodity to bulk carriers off the Pilbara coast that are destined for China. These three transhippers also got caught up in the stormy weather brewed by Tropical Cyclone Sean and had to scurry more than 500km to Shark Bay for safety. “The MinRes transhipper fleet sheltered at Shark Bay as a safety precaution due to Severe Tropical Cyclone Sean, which disrupted eight days of transhipping operations,” the MinRes spokesman said. “Transhipping operations have since resumed at the Port of Ashburton. Annual volume guidance incorporates adverse weather modelling.” A source says it took three days for the transhippers to make their way down to Shark Bay and they battled significant swells and winds to make it back to Onslow. But MinRes has not been the only iron ore miner to be impacted by Cyclone Sean. A Rio Tinto railcar dumper — a piece of equipment that transfers tonnes of ore from rail cars on locomotives to ships for export — was flooded last week and will be out of action for about three to four weeks. The port facility near Karratha the railcar dumper connects to is responsible for more than 13 per cent of Rio’s annual WA iron ore output. Six BHP workers at the Mount Whaleback mine required medical treatment for minor injuries on Saturday after a lightning storm caused a mining dump truck’s tyre to explode and damage buildings being used as shelter.