Aussie mining tycoon loses battle for royalties advance from CITIC
Print Edition
AUSTRALIAN mining tycoon and politician Clive Palmer’s bid for a “highly unusual” advance on a multi-million dollar royalties claim has been rejected by a court in a long-running legal battle with Chinese conglomerate CITIC.
Palmer’s mining firm Mineralogy demanded CITIC pay an A$48 million (US$35 million) advance on a royalties payment relating to a mining project.
Hong Kong-based CITIC is mining for magnetite iron ore on Palmer’s sprawling tenements in resource-rich Pilbara, Western Australia, under a 25-year lease.
However, the bid was rejected by the Supreme Court of Western Australia late Monday, despite a plea by Mineralogy that if the multi-million-dollar advance on royalties was not granted, Queensland Nickel — a separate business also owned by Palmer — would “suffer irreparable harm” and risk hundreds of jobs.
Justice Paul Tottle said that while Mineralogy claimed Queensland Nickel was “experiencing a liquidity crisis” and needed an injection of money to “avoid closure”, the refinery’s perilous position might be exaggerated.
He added that the request for payment was “highly unusual” because the court case with CITIC over royalties was not yet resolved.
The two companies have traded barbs over the feud, with the flamboyant tycoon blasting Chinese politicians as “mongrels” last year, while a Chinese state-run newspaper labelled his comments as “rampant rascality.”
CITIC’s spokesman in Australia Rob Newton said his company had paid millions of dollars to Palmer and Mineralogy over the years.
“It’s our view that how Mr Palmer chooses to spend this money and how he chooses to manage his other ventures — whether it’s golf courses, nickel mines, soccer teams, the Titanic 2 or robotic dinosaurs — is a matter for him,” he said outside the court late Monday.
Besides his mining and political interests, Palmer is well-known for plans to build a full-scale replica of the Titanic and a golf course replete with robotic dinosaurs in Queensland.
Palmer’s plea has highlighted the perilous state of some nickel firms as metals prices flounder.
Nickel prices have been hit hard by the global commodities rout, tumbling more than 40 percent this year to fall to their lowest levels in over a decade.
Palmer, a member of Australia’s parliament and head of the Palmer United political party — which wields crucial balance-of-power votes in the upper house Senate — said yesterday he met with Queensland state Treasurer Curtis Pitt over the future of the nickel refinery.
He said only “minimal assistance” was needed from the government.
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