CITIC Pacific’s Sino Iron profit falls by more than $550m to $273m after running out of room

Clive Palmer’s royalty cheque from China’s biggest mine in Australia has eclipsed the profit the operation generated for its owner. Chinese conglomerate CITIC Pacific booked $US176.3m ($272.8m) of net profit from its Sino Iron magnetite mine on WA’s north-west coast during 2024, according to freshly filed accounts. This bottom line result is 67 per cent lower than the 2023 figure of $835.4m and comes as CITIC stresses the future viability of Sino Iron is threatened by Mr Palmer’s legal obstructions. Mr Palmer’s Mineralogy banked $447m of royalties for the 2023 financial year and $413m for the 2024 financial year. Royalties the mining magnate reaps from Sino Iron is linked to the operation’s revenue, not profit. Sino Iron produced $US1.63 billion of revenue for 2024 versus $US2.56b the year prior, a decline of 37 per cent. CITIC last February warned Sino Iron had reached the limit of its boundaries and need to expand for the lights to stay on. Production was cut by a third during 2024 as CITIC waited for Mineralogy’s green light to submit the Sino Iron expansion plans to regulators. But those plans to keep pumping out magnetite concentrate, which is a type of iron ore product, have been left in limbo by a long-running legal feud between Mr Palmer and CITIC. Mr Palmer in April sensationally claimed he would allow CITIC to keep mining at Sino Iron — a sharp U-turn that came less than a week out from a courtroom showdown to settle the stand-off over the mine’s future and 3000 jobs it sustains. The billionaire approved the pleas of its Chinese golden goose for Mineralogy to sign off on the expansion plans but they are continuing to fight over potential damages stemming from the delays. Mineralogy alleged it was not provided with the documents necessary to approve the mine extension. “This lack of co-operation puts Mineralogy in a difficult position as technical data was required, particularly on the block model and mine pit shell, for the purpose of assessing future mining operations by the CITIC parties,” Mineralogy alleged. “Following receipt of this information on 24 February 2025, and based on the advice of Mineralogy’s technical experts, Mineralogy has now approved CITIC’s expansion.’’ In a retort, Citic claimed it had received a document that contained “pages of unexplained deletions” and removed “much of the content required by the State Agreement.” “At all relevant times, Mineralogy has had all the information required to approve our proposals. At any time in the last 20 months Mineralogy could have submitted our proposals,” CITIC stated. Adding to the messy stoush, Mineralogy wants a new permit for something “secret” on mining tenements where the rich-lister’s company has repeatedly failed to pay its dues. Mineralogy in April applied for a ‘miscellaneous licence’ across a 1952-hectare area it controls about 20km south of Sino Iron, which is located between Onslow and Karratha. Yet, Mineralogy has been penalised multiple times for not spending enough to develop prospective mining land near Sino Iron. The wealthy Queenslander’s Mineralogy already holds an ‘exploration licence’ over the two tenements it recently made the miscellaneous licence application for. Based on the size of mining tenements this exploration licence covers, Mineralogy needs to spend at least $70,000 annually on exploration activities like drilling or geological surveys. This is on top of paying about $6300 of rent per year. Mineralogy in recent years has been fined multiple times by the Department of Energy, Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety for failing to meet the exploration expenditure threshold. In 2023, DEMIRS fined Mineralogy $7920 for “non-compliance with expenditure conditions” and in 2024 that fine was hiked to $25,432 for the same offence. It also received a $630 fine for the offence back in 2019. A miscellaneous licence has no annual expenditure requirements and can either replace, or co-exist with, an exploration licence. It is not clear if Mineralogy plans to keep or replace its exploration licence. The WA Government states that a miscellaneous licence is one of the permits required for building infrastructure to facilitate mining, “such as roads and pipelines”. A Mineralogy spokesman was coy and succinct when asked what piece of infrastructure the company was planning to build, if anything. “It’s a secret,” he said. DEMIRS also declined to comment on Mineralogy’s plans for the land, which sits within the boundaries of Mineralogy’s dormant Balmoral South iron ore project. Mr Palmer has blamed the WA Government for Balmoral South’s stalled progress since the 2000s. This led the litigious billionaire to spectacularly sue the WA Government two decades later for $30 billion in damages and sparked a bitter war of words between him and then-premier Mark McGowan.

CITIC Pacific’s Sino Iron profit falls by more than $550m to $273m after running out of room

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