Australian billionaire Clive Palmer’s Mineralogy Pty has agreed to an expansion of one of the country’s biggest Chinese-run iron ore projects, the latest step in a decades-long spat with owners Citic Ltd.
Mineralogy owns the legal permits where the Sino Iron project is located and has approved its expansion, according to a statement from the Australian company on Wednesday. The operation is run by Citic Pacific Mining Management Pty, which is a Perth-based unit of the Chinese conglomerate.
The offer comes after Palmer’s Mineralogy and Citic have been embroiled in a long-running legal dispute involving royalty payments. The iron ore project is considered one of the largest foreign mining investments by a Chinese company in Australia.
Mineralogy lost a bid in Australia’s Supreme Court to lodge a counterclaim for unpaid royalties, as part of one of its multiple lawsuits, according to a judgment published this week. A trial on the matter is due to take place from Monday.
Citic’s request to expand the project “had been delayed due to their ongoing and persistent failure to provide necessary documents, which was in serious breach of the agreement,” Palmer said in the statement. “Mineralogy looks forward to increased exports and an expanded workforce with the expansion of these operations.”
A spokesperson for Citic Pacific, which has invested more than $12 billion to develop the project, said in a separate statement that for the past 20 months, Mineralogy had all the information needed to approve its proposals.
“Mr Palmer’s attempts to blame the delays on Citic are inconsistent with the objective history of the matter,” the spokesperson said. “Given that the trial of this matter is currently listed to commence next week, any further comment at this stage would not be appropriate.”
This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.
Leave a Reply