Mineral Resources opens glitzy love nest FIFO camp Mungala Resort at its Onslow Iron mine in WA’s north

Mineral Resources has cut the ribbon on a luxurious accommodation complex fitted with “love-nest” dongas to house the workers of an iron ore mining operation that could make or break the Chris Ellison-led company.

MinRes officially opened its $140 million Mungala Resort at the $3.5 billion Onslow Iron project in the Pilbara on Thursday.

Mungala can house up to 500 employees at any one time and is the most extravagant mine site camp to have been built in Western Australia.

The plethora of recreational amenities include a resort-style swimming pool, cricket net, football oval, mini golf course, virtual golf driving range, car racing simulators, and tennis, basketball and volleyball courts.

The site includes a tavern and an up-scale dining hall slated to dish out six tonnes of crayfish and 18 tonnes of steak each year.

Worker Lisa Vines, who joined MinRes after three decades in the public sector, described the camp as the “Club Med of the Pilbara”.

Each of the camp’s 500 rooms have 45 square metres of living space and contain their own queen-sized bed, kitchenette, en suite, lounge, large-screen TV and washer-dryer.

The rooms, which have been colloquially dubbed “love nests” or “love shacks” within the mining industry, are suitable for singles or couples — according to MinRes.

While many mining companies frown upon romantic mingling at their camps, MinRes touts that the resort’s population includes 23 couples.

It believes rolling out the red carpet for romantic partners to live together on site will “encourage workforce diversity”.

“We’ve already seen that diversity, or having an environment that is as beautiful as this, has already attracted a more diverse range of people, people that previously may not have considered FIFO as an option . . . and that includes women,” MinRes director of people Andrea Chapman said.

“But in addition to it being beautiful, it is also safe. You might have seen travelling around the security cameras, the open plan living, the fact that the plants are really low lying, all of that is done really intentional to provide better security outcomes for all of our people.”

Ms Chapman said it was “incredibly competitive” to get a spot at Mungala and MinRes has a long internal wait-list of men and women eager to work at Onslow owing to the luxury camp.

Cory Cruttenden, who met his partner Deni Latus at Onslow, said: “It’s just good to have your partner up here to unwind the stress from your day. We can just physically talk to one another face-to-face, which makes the interaction a lot more pleasant.”

Mr Ellison, who was not present at the media tour of the site’s opening, in a statement said the company recognised traditional mining camps “must evolve” in part to “grow female participation”.

Attracting and retaining staff at Onslow is a key priority for MinRes given the project’s vital role in digging the company out of a financial hole.

MinRes had debts of $5.8 billion and just $450m of cash by the end of the March quarter. The company has cut more than 1740 jobs so far this financial year.

With its lithium mines struggling and its other iron ore mines producing relatively small amounts of cash, Onslow is seen by many analysts as MinRes’ main solution to pay down its big pile of loans.

Onslow produced first iron ore in May last year but faced a series of setbacks in its first year of operation, including severe rain damage to the 147-kilometre private haul road that links mine to port.

MinRes is also currently being investigated by Australia’s corporate cop, a probe which is set to focus on the alleged dealings of Mr Ellison and his associates.