Mineral Resources set to cull 100 white-collar workers following Yilgarn iron ore shutdown and lithium freeze

Chris Ellison’s Mineral Resources is joining in on a huge wave of job losses gripping the WA mining industry amid a weak market across a growing number of commodities.

MinRes has reportedly decided to shed 100 white-collar jobs, the majority based in Perth, and notified affected staff over the past 24 hours.

As part of the belt-tightening initiative prices of snacks and beverages heavily subsidised by MinRes in their plush Osborne Park headquarters will be hiked. The meal selection at its in-house Benny’s restaurant will also purportedly include a higher portion of cheaper options.

A MinRes spokesman confirmed the job losses but did not provide details about how many workers would be affected.

“MinRes constantly reviews our organisational structure to ensure it is efficient and that our white-collar workforce reflects the requirements of our mining operations,” he said.

“Given the ramp down of Onslow Iron construction and the cessation of exports from the Yilgarn Hub by the end of the year, there will be a necessary reduction in employees at head office.”

It comes over a month after Mineral Resources said it would shut its Yilgarn iron ore hub, an employer of about 1000 people, before the end of the year.

The company assured at the time that it had about 800 vacancies to fill mostly over at its new iron ore mine Onslow.

MinRes said the decision to close the sprawling Goldfields-located operation was based on the high costs and lengthy lead times required to get new supply going.

MinRes shipped its first ore from Onslow last month. At its peak, the new mine will employ 1600 people and pump out about 35 million tonnes of the steelmaking commodity a year.

The company has already pre-sold about $600m of iron ore from its WA operations.

On an analyst call after its June quarterly results announcement, MinRes confirmed that it will keep train 3 at the Wodgina lithium mine, 120km south of Port Hedland, on ice until the lithium price improves.

In February Mr Ellison originally said the full ramp-up of Wodgina train 3 would be pushed out until “the middle” of this year.

Tuesday’s job cuts will add to the growing tally of thousands made in WA mining over the past 12 months, as softer commodity prices force companies to make tough decisions about their balance sheets.

The ongoing battery metals route has claimed about 7000 WA jobs spanning BHP, Wyloo, Panoramic Resources, IGO, Core Lithium and First Quantum Minerals.

BHP was the biggest domino to fall when it “temporarily suspended” its WA nickel business last month.

Last week Australia’s largest lithium producer — Albemarle — announced it will shut down a large chunk of its huge Kemerton lithium hydroxide processing plant in WA’s South West and signalled that depressed lithium prices are here to stay for a while.

The US-headquartered lithium goliath says it will stop construction of the third production train at the Kemerton plant, located near Bunbury, while also placing the second train into care and maintenance. The move will lead to about 300 redundancies.

MinRes owns Wodgina in partnership with Albemarle.

Last month Fortescue made about 700 of its workers redundant, the vast majority of which were white-collar workers.

Fortescue founder Andrew Forrest said the move was to streamline the company’s green energy and iron ore divisions.

The iron ore price has shed nearly a quarter of its value since the start of the year.

Mineral Resources shares were down 1.96 per cent to $50.97 apiece. The company has lost nearly 28 per cent of its value since the onset of 2024.