Diversified miner Mineral Resources (MinRes) will shut its Yilgarn iron-ore mine, in Western Australia’s Goldfields region, at the end of the year.
The decision, announced on Wednesday, follows an assessment that confirmed that it was not financially viable for the hub to continue beyond the calendar year.
“This prudent but difficult decision was not taken lightly and follows years of investment to extend the life of our operations in the Yilgarn,” said MinRes MD Chris Ellison.
The decision has been influenced by a combination of factors, including the limited remaining life across five operating mines spread over 220 km, and the significant capital costs and lead time required to develop new resources to ensure continuity of supply.
The Yilgarn hub operations will ramp down in a staged approach over the next six months, with up to four-million wet metric tonnes expected to be shipped by the end of the calendar year. Mining operations will then transition into care and maintenance from early 2025.
About 1 000 employees will be impacted by the development.
“With our investment across Western Australia, we have almost 800 vacancies and will redeploy as many of our people as possible to other MinRes operations, including to our low-cost, long-life Onslow Iron project,” said Ellison.
“MinRes has operated in the region since our maiden shipment from Carina in 2011. In 2018, with the support of the WA government, we stepped in to save hundreds of Western Australian jobs at Koolyanobbing that were set to be lost with the departure of Cliffs. By the end of this year, we will have operated Koolyanobbing for six-and-a-half years, exported almost 45-million tonnes via the Port of Esperance and spent $4.2-billion running our Yilgarn operation, exceeding our commitments,” he added.