Mineral Resources pulls all iron ore trucks off troubled private Onslow haul road after latest rollover

Mineral Resources has hit another financial pothole by pulling all iron ore trucks off its trouble-plagued $2.6 billion Onslow haul road after notching half a dozen rollovers on the crucial transport link. Monday’s incident marked the sixth road train rollover on the haul road — jointly owned with Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners — since August. Less than a day after confirming the latest incident, MinRes told investors on Wednesday morning that all haulage along the 147km stretch of road had been “temporarily paused”. MinRes shares plunged 12 per cent in early trade to $21.87 but pared those heavy loses to close down 3.9 per cent to $23.88. They are now down 65 per cent over the past year. There was no indication of how long the truck suspension would last but MinRes said it would give the company time to discuss an enforcement action issued by WorkSafe “relating to controls and risk-mitigation of the road train operations”. “Haulage is continuing via contractor vehicles using alternative routes, and MinRes transhippers will continue to load ocean-going vessels during this period,” it said. “MinRes has strengthened controls and traffic management on the haul road and currently expects to resume haul road operations without impacting FY25 Onslow Iron volume guidance.” Analysts from RBC Capital Markets and Jarden said the haul road suspension will impact the struggling miner’s tight cash flow. MinRes had $720 million of cash reserves but nearly $5.1 billion of net debt by the end of 2024. The road, which links the Chris Ellison-led miner’s most important iron ore operation to port, was left badly damaged by cyclonic flooding in the Pilbara and will now need to be repaired and resurfaced at a cost of $230 million. As reported by The West Australian earlier this month, a 225-page report presented to MinRes by mining advisers AMC Consultants said a truck would have to leave every five minutes throughout the day to hit the miner’s iron ore export targets. AMC said that would mean “more than 550 ‘truck passing interactions’ every hour on the haul road, day and night”. A spokesman for the miner at the time said MinRes had “safely” operated 24/7 supply chains using high frequency haulage at its other sites for more than a decade, and noted the private haul road was wider than standard public highways with a further 500cm of sealed shoulder on each lane. Monday’s truck incident came just six weeks after the previous one. MinRes said the rear two trailers of a road train had “tipped onto their side”. “The prime mover and first trailer remained upright and the operator was not injured,” the MinRes spokesman said. “The incident was reported to the Department of Energy, Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety. MinRes takes seriously any incident that occurs onsite and safety is our highest priority.” Including Monday’s incident, three of the rollovers have occurred on the main road, and three on service lanes that feed into the main road. On January 30, just days before the fifth rollover, MinRes chief financial officer Mark Wilson said all the rollovers “involved some degree of operator error”. “We’ve included a number of operational improvements, strengthening driver training, looking at the road design, making improvements and improving signage and lane delineation,” he said at the time. “We feel that we’re in a good space there now.” Last month, Mr Ellison said the haul road’s issues were “not a big deal, trucks are running and life is still going on”. MinRes reduced its targeted iron ore output for the financial year at Onslow from between 10.5 million tonnes and 11.7mt to a new band of 8.8mt to 9.3mt while it undertakes the asphalt resurfacing work.