Been a while since a weekend post!!!Israel Iran conflict is...

Been a while since a weekend post!!!

Israel Iran conflict is going to be quite a big negative for global markets in the upcoming week - So its ever more important that we remind ourselves of what's happening at Onslow to be able to cancel out the loud macro noise!


There are 3 things happening - Road, trucks and transhippers!

Lets talk Road

Here is a map of the ~150Km road divided into 3 sections -

`a) Port to TMF:- This is a 18KM section and as per the preso this is now fully upgraded in both directions

b) TMF to NWC Highway intersection:- This is 65KM stretch out of which ~36KM is completed as of 28th may. 2 weeks have passed since so I say 45KM done by now and ~20KM left. This stretch of road is quite important because there no mine access road that runs alongside it and the trucks are currently having to take the LONG and slow route via the NWC Highway which is very inefficient from from load and cycles point of view. Once Minres has this section working in both directions - I assume by mid-late July the cycles and load per cycle will both improve further.

c) NWCH to Ken's bore:- This remaining section of road is the last cab off the rank. They were quite clever in doing this way as they only need one side of the road as the unloaded trucks can come from the mine access road that runs parallel. So this is not a bottleneck and Minres can quite easily get this done in an orderly fashion. They haven't provided any commentary around this but my speculation is that they have started working on at least one side of the road and hoping to complete this by August

Now lets talk Trucks:-

Minres is currently working with 91 Jumbos at a reduced 260tonnes load on the private road and 80 Contractor trucks at 100 tonnes load each along the public road. This combination is already hitting 30mtpa plus annualised rate for shipping. Once the road is fully upgraded and Minres brings the remaining jumbos up the ramp up - The cycles per day and load per day will increase materially beyond what we see today.

Now lets talk transhippers. The hero of our story No one thought MinRes can do it we did easily.

The 4 transhippers welcomed their sister Peak to the party and the 5 of them are making a mockery of all those who said transhipping doesnt work! Only held back by the availability of ore on the port - These 5 sisters are delivering hand over fist. Look no further than the updates from @Stonedfish@blackdekka on the transhipping thread. This is not the end though. Their 6th and 7th sisters are in the womb arriving in 2026/2027

Now the slide below lays out the end game very clearly. The project is already at 41/42mtpa except for road and transhipping. Road is heading to 40mtpa shortly and when the 6th transhipper arrives we are looking at a 40mtpa project.




MinRes has done a great job with this project - while it gets all the bad press compare this to iron bride from the great FMG which has been delayed and is over budget by multiples of original cost. Any guesses how many fatalities have happened at the great simandou project?? compared to 0 at our project.

When the markets are down on Monday - I will remind myself of the achievements and what's ahead!!!