$20-a-day childcare and new airline hoped to bring more women to Mineral Resources’ 8000-plus workforce

Chris Ellison’s Mineral Resources will launch MinRes Air in the second half of 2024 and set up a $20-a-day childcare centre in two huge recruitment drives to add more women to the workforce. The colourful mining chief executive told a packed Macquarie Australia Conference room in Sydney on Wednesday that it was a “daily chore” to keep a strong dynamic culture running through the multi-commodity business, which is preparing to ship first ore from its newest iron ore mine at Onslow. MinRes employs more than 8000 people and is on a major recruitment drive to bump that up to 10,000 by the end of the year. The miner is known for its plush Osborne Park headquarters and has also been building resort-style accommodation to attract couples to the fly-in, fly-out life and create what Mr Ellison hoped would be a “safer work environment” for women. The conference heard a new daycare centre would also be among the ploys to win over the stretched labour pool in WA, and that the miner was also looking at starting its own airline to get workers to and from site. “And we’ve started our own flights, so we’re starting our own airline. I’m not allowed to say that ... but we are,” he said. “We’ve started ... coming out of Brisbane the last couple of months and we’re the only mining company who come direct from Brisbane into two of our sites at the moment.” Following queries from The West Australian, the miner confirmed the launch of MinRes Air. “MinRes is working to redefine the FIFO experience for our people by setting a new standard in facilities, food and flights,” executive general manager people and logistics Bethanie Ibrahim said. “The next stage in this evolution is MinRes Air, a new internal flights department that will provide air charter services from a dedicated MinRes Air terminal directly to our sites. “MinRes Air will provide flight flexibility to our FIFO operations and allow our people to travel to and from site at attractive times five days a week.” The new service could be flying workers to the new Onslow operation as early as the second half of this year, and would lease two A319 aircraft and one A320 aircraft that would operate under an existing airline, but under MinRes Air branding. Recruitment for captains, first officers and flight attendants is believed to have already started. Mr Ellison also confirmed that MinRes was bumping up its childcare offerings as part of the recruitment effort. “In our head office we serve over a 1000 (5-star) lunches a day, we’ve got a gym with 1500 membership,” Mr Ellison told the Macquarie conference on Wednesday. “And I’m building a daycare centre so, ladies, if you want to come and work for me, 20 bucks a day for your kids.” The new childcare centre will be set up near MinRes’ head office in Osborne Park, and is also expected to open in the second half of this year exclusively for children of MinRes staff. Mr Ellison said he was hoping to get the Onslow iron workforce to “about 40 per cent female” — a target he suggested was tracking well, with “people lined up around the block” to work on the project. Onslow is due to ship first ore from June and will deliver about 35 million tonnes a year at full capacity. Outside of iron ore, Mr Ellison cast bullish predictions on the lithium spot price, estimating it could get up to $US1500 a tonne by the end of the year and up to $US2500 in 2026 to 2027. “Everyone is a bit concerned about the lithium price,” he said. “I started in lithium back in 2010. Back in those days, we were at about $US250 a tonne. Eventually around 2018 it started to migrate up towards about $US450 a tonne, and we built our mines around those sorts of numbers. “Today’s prices aren’t as bad as what everyone thinks. I mean, they’re bad if you go out there and you build them (mines) in a low cost environment.” MinRes runs three lithium mines — Mt Marion, Wodgina and Bald Hill.