Why the Market’s Misunderstood MinRes' Mining Services Business

At Goldrock, we like to go deep on the numbers before we form a view. And in the case of Mineral Resources (ASX:MIN), we think the market’s been getting one key part of the story wrong for a while now.

You’ll often hear that MinRes’ Mining Services division is mostly internal — a kind of back-office function that supports its lithium and iron ore mines. The go-to line is that only ~25% of services revenue is “external.”

But after building a full bottom-up model of the business, we think that’s a serious undercall.

In 2025, based on tonnes attributable to equity partners and third-party clients, we estimate that around 50% of total Mining Services volumes are external to MinRes. And that percentage holds relatively steady over the rest of the decade.

Here’s why:

• MinRes provides services to 100% of the volumes at JV mines, even if it only owns 50–60%. That includes Wodgina, Onslow Iron, and Mt Marion.

• It also runs services contracts for true external clients — like BHP’s Mt Whaleback, Roy Hill, Atlas Iron’s McPhee Creek, and Rio Tinto’s bauxite haulage at Weipa.

• We’ve modelled this using ore-to-TMM ratios, asset-level production forecasts, nameplate capacity where relevant, and equity splits from public filings and MinRes guidance.

• For lithium tonnes, we’ve also cross-checked volumes against Benchmark Mineral Intelligence forecasts, which support continued growth across Wodgina and Mt Marion.

And this isn’t just noise. Mining Services is one of the highest-margin businesses MinRes owns. It’s capital-light, highly diversified across clients and commodities, and importantly, most of the mines it supports sit mid-to-low on the cost curve — meaning volumes are sticky, even in weaker price environments.

Our view?

Mining Services is not a cost centre. It’s a real business. And if it were ring-fenced, it would likely trade at a premium multiple — given the strength of its EBITDA and the quality of its client base.

It’s quietly supporting BHP, Hancock, Albemarle, and Rio — and growing.

We’ve attached a screenshot of our model if you're curious (fair warning: not pretty, but functional — like most of our work).

Disclosure: Goldrock Capital holds shares in MIN. This note is not investment advice — just an insight from the bottom-up research we do for our own capital.