Min Res charm offensive

At 10:30 on Wednesday morning, mining analysts and investors will set off from the port of Ashburton on a taut three-hour bus ride along Mineral Resources' infamous private haul road to its Ken's Bore iron ore mine. As they cling to the Jesus handles, CEO Chris Ellison's instructions will surely boom from the PA: "If I could get youse to more focus on the share price – if you could get that up, that would get my debt ratio down."[[No joke, Ellison actually said this to analysts on the company's interim earnings call in February.]] 

Quite aside from Ellison's hard-wired self-dealing and borderline kleptomania, exposed last year by the Australian Financial Review, the Onslow haul road is central to Mineral Resources' existential problems. The road needs to maintain traffic movements akin to the Chicago Skyway just for Min Res to meet the shipment guidance that will service (or at least stop adding to) its crushing debt pile.[[Mineral Resources' gross debt is $5.8 billion and net debt is $5.1 billion. Its market capitalisation, which has fallen by three-quarters, is just $4.7 billion.]] Instead, the road has been beset with engineering issues, serious accidents, closures and additional costs. 

Just for a change, Ellison is the author of these problems. Respected construction contractor QH & M Birt was hired to build the road but walked off the job in February 2024 over the quality of materials it was being supplied for the road base. As Min Res was bandicooting the sandstone alongside the route, Birt said, We're not doing this, this isn't how we build roads.[[Note that Birt walked yet has not paid a single dollar of compensation to Min Res.]] So Ellison said, We'll build it ourselves if you're too much of a pussy! And fatefully, Min Res did.[[In March 2024, Min Res issued an audacious denial that the dispute with QH& M Birt would have any impact on construction of the haul road.]]

Ellison must've seen an episode of Bush Mechanics – the one where an '84 Commodore without doors or a roof gets bogged up to the axles and some bloke dislodges it using only a tomahawk – and decided he could easily turn a goat track into a freeway.[[At least he was smart to dump half this goat track onto a bigger fool, in Morgan Stanley, for $1.3 billion.]]