Rinehart footed with royalty bill in billion-dollar dispute

Continuing fuel supply constraints tied to the war in Iran are impacting Australia’s exploration and mining sector, with smaller operators now halting operations.Blue Cap Mining has halted gold mining operations and sent workers home in WA due to a lack of guaranteed fuel supply, according to the Association of Mining and Exploration Companies (AMEC).According to Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data, mining accounted for 35% of diesel used in Australia during FY24.AMEC says that although reports from across the country indicate that fuel continues to enter Australia, disruptions within the domestic supply chain are preventing it from reaching the customers who need it most.“We keep being told there is enough fuel supplies to meet demand, it just needs to get to the right places,” AMEC chief executive Warren Pearce said.“Well, right now, that simply isn’t happening.“Case in point is Blue Cap Mining, who this week chose to halt gold mining operations and send workers home in WA, due to the lack of guaranteed fuel supply.“It’s the small mining operations and mining services companies, that like farmers, rely on fuel provision from independent fuel companies, that are bearing the brunt of fuel shortages.”The Australian Mining Review has reached out to Blue Cap Mining for comment.On March 3, Federal Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen moved to reassure the public, saying Australia was “currently in excess of the minimum stock obligations” for petrol, diesel and jet fuel.At the time, Minister Bowen said Australia had 36 days’ worth of petrol, 34 days’ worth of diesel and 32 days’ worth of jet fuel on hand at present.The latest weekly figures — for stocks held on March 10 and released in the first weekly update on March 14 — showed 37 days of petrol, 30 days of diesel and 29 days of jet fuel at a normal rate of consumption.Following this, the Federal Government temporarily relaxed Australia’s fuel quality standards, allowing higher-sulfur petrol to be supplied for 60 days to ease regional shortages.Minister Bowen said the move would add about 100 million litres a month of new domestic petrol supply that would otherwise have been exported to be blended.There have been reports that major fuel wholesalers have been rationing supply to independent operators servicing regional and remote areas.AMEC says it is the major fuel wholesalers, such as BP, Chevron, Mobil and Viva Energy, who control the flow of fuel to independent distributors and ensure established supply chains remain functional.“From what our members are telling us, there is a serious disconnect between these wholesalers and the independent distributors,” Mr Pearce said.“Independent operators know where the fuel needs to go, but they’ve been rationed down by the wholesalers.“We need to see the fuel wholesalers re-engage with independent operators and make sure the system that has worked flawlessly year on year for us, continues to work.”The Federal Government temporarily released up to 20% of the baseline Minimum Stockholding Obligation, making up to 762 million litres of petrol and diesel available to help ease fuel shortages in regional Australia.Fuel companies will only be allowed to relax their storage obligations if they are taking steps to prioritise supply to regional customers, allocate reasonable additional supply to bulk customers and are providing volumes needed to help meet usual demand — not to customers seeking to profiteer from price spikes, panic purchasing or stockpiling.

The WA Supreme Court has ordered Pilbara Ports to hand over further internal and contract documents in its ongoing dispute with Mineral Resources (ASX: MIN) over a Port of Ashburton “Channel Charge”.The port authority admits it levied the Channel Charge as a pass-through of the amount it is required to pay Chevron for access to the Port of Ashburton LNG shipping channel under arrangements linked to Chevron’s Wheatstone project.Pilbara Ports says it invoiced MinRes for the Channel Charge and MinRes refused to pay, prompting the court action.In the discovery ruling, the court ordered Pilbara Ports to produce additional board and executive materials concerning proposals and decisions to levy the Channel Charge, as well as specified agreements linked to the port arrangements and Port of Ashburton financial documents.Pilbara Ports says the Channel Charge is a “port charge”, characterising it as a charge for port services, an access charge or a port due. The matter is listed for a three-day trial commencing April 28, with the heart of the dispute being whether the charge is a valid port charge, which MinRes denies along with any liability for the invoices.MinRes has challenged the charge on multiple grounds, including that Pilbara Ports did not have the power to impose it, that it is not a port charge, that it was not made in accordance with prudent commercial principles and that it exceeds channel or port-services costs.MinRes also alleges the charge was imposed for an improper purpose, to reimburse Chevron and recover those amounts from MinRes.

The Australian Resources and Energy Employer Association (AREEA) is lobbying for the revision of structural flaws as part of the Federal Government’s national employment standards (NES) review.As part of a submission to the House of Representatives Inquiry, AREEA calls on the Federal Government to use the NES review to fix Australia’s workplace laws, not expand entitlements or add more complexity and business costs, arguing that the central issue is the growing incoherence between the law and modern work practices.AREEA says the most urgent reform area is the application of public holiday provisions in 24/7 and remote workplaces, especially those in Australia’s mining sector.A 2023 Federal Court decision created confusion for employers operating continuous rosters, requiring them to request employees to work public holidays even where long-term roster arrangements already incorporate those days.AREEA chief executive Steve Knott says the NES review must fix what’s broken.“Nearly 17 years after the Fair Work Act was introduced, the system no longer reflects how work is actually performed, particularly in continuous, shift-based and FIFO operations that underpin Australia’s resources and energy sector,” he said.“In remote and offshore environments, employees cannot simply walk off site or down tools on a public holiday.“The law currently assumes a traditional Monday-to-Friday workplace. That is not how Australia’s resources industry and many others operate.”AREEA is calling for clear statutory rules that allow roster-based public holiday notifications for continuous operations, clarify how refusals are assessed in FIFO contexts and prevent double payment where public holidays are already priced into annualised salaries.“This is about restoring common sense and coherence to the safety net, not reducing employee protections,” Mr Knott said.“Our workplace laws must recognise that many employees are already compensated for working an assumed number of public holidays each year.AREEA also warned that prescriptive award-based record-keeping obligations attached to annualised salaries have become a major source of technical non-compliance, even where employees are paid well above award rates.“In many remote operations, highly skilled employees are paid guaranteed annual earnings significantly above minimum standards. Award rates become largely irrelevant,” Mr Knott said.“Yet employers are required to operate parallel time-recording systems solely to satisfy award technicalities that have no impact on pay outcomes.“The system has shifted from protecting employees against underpayment to penalising employers for paperwork defects.”AREEA’s submission also calls for moderation of annualised salary record-keeping rules, safe harbour compliance mechanisms and simplification of reconciliation requirements in 24/7 and roster-based environments.More than 15 years have passed since the Fair Work Act was implemented and over that period, significant changes in industry structure, technology and social expectations have occurred.Modern awards were intended by the Federal Government to supplement the NES, by providing a limited number of additional minimum standards tailored to particular industries and occupations, rather than requiring the NES itself to accommodate all forms of work.In AREEA’s view, this framework has been progressively undermined by judicial interpretation that seeks to shoehorn modern, flexible and salaried work arrangements into rigid NES concepts that were never designed for that purpose“The NES was designed to be clear, simple and enforceable,” Mr Knott said.“Instead, years of court rulings and piecemeal changes to the law have turned it into a source of duplication, uncertainty and litigation risk.“This review is an opportunity to modernise the safety net for modern work. It should not be used to expand regulation without evidence of need.”

Several explorers, backed by the Queensland Government, are leveraging the current global fuel security crisis to push for development of the Taroom Trough, which the state says could become Australia's first new oil field since the 1970s. Though the Federal Government is making efforts to minimise the economic shock of a fuel crisis, it does not change the fact that Australia’s dependence on energy imports leaves the country vulnerable.   Australia imports more than 90% of its liquid fuels, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). Since 2000, Australia’s importation of oil product has increased about tenfold, according to 2024 data from the International Energy Agency (IEA). The Taroom Trough is a major hydrocarbon-bearing structure of the Bowen Basin, in southern and central Queensland, and the Queensland Government says developing it would bolster Australia’s long-term fuel security. With the first barrels of oil now entering the domestic fuel supply chain, the Queensland Government is pushing for major project status by the Federal Government to fast-track environmental approvals under the National Interest Fast-Track Assessment Pathway.  Queensland Premier David Crisafulli says streamlining exploration and production of the Taroom Trough is needed to get it out of the ground sooner. “Never again should we be left without the ability to generate domestic fuel supply,” he said. The amount of oil that could be produced — and the environmental impacts of the large-scale, unconventional development — remains unclear. The operation is currently only producing 200 barrels of crude oil a day, barely making a dent in Australia’s demand, with a daily consumption of more than one million barrels of oil a day, according to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA).  Even at its peak, an average of about 800,000 barrels a day in 2000 as estimated by BP, domestic production still fell short of demand.  Australia’s oil reserves are also limited. Geoscience Australia estimates Australia’s proven commercial reserves are about 229 million barrels of oil. Given the amount of fuel the country consumes each day, this would only be enough for about seven months, according to the IEEFA. Australia’s unconventional oil reserves have the potential to be much higher than commercial reserves, but accessing these sources comes with a plethora of issues — mainly surrounding the use of fracking. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is making a more immediate effort to shore up Australia’s fuel supply in talks with Singapore, a crucial fuel refinery hub. Singapore has three refineries that have a combined crude oil refining capacity of 1.3m barrels a day, according to the EIA. Australia has a solid bilateral relationship with Singapore — the region is one of Australia’s largest refined fuel suppliers and Australia is one of Singapore’s largest LNG suppliers.  “Australia and Singapore share deep concern over the situation in the Middle East and its consequences for our region, such as the impact on energy supply chains and prices,” Prime Minister Albanese said. “ commitment to strengthen energy security, to support the flow of essential goods including petroleum oils, such as diesel and LNG between our two countries, and to notify and consult each other on any disruptions with ramifications on the trade of energy.” Prime Minister Albanese may be able to secure more immediate fuel supplies from Singapore, but that doesn’t change the fact Singapore relies heavily on crude oil imports from the Middle East to maintain its production capacity. Energy markets have remained on edge since the disruption introduced by the Covid-19 Pandemic and quickly followed by the global energy crisis sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.  Now, the ongoing conflict in Iran is rubbing salt in the still healing wound of Australia’s energy market.  On the upside, the US has agreed to a temporary ceasefire with Iran on the condition that ships be granted safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz, which has given some tentative relief to the market, although shipping in the waterway remains heavily restricted. Even if the ceasefire holds, restoring shipping flows, repairing damaged infrastructure and returning production to full capacity could still take months.