Roy Hill’s mining leases under threat

The WA Supreme Court has dismissed Roy Hill’s application to protect the ownership of two mining leases at its $12b Pilbara operation.

The case, filed mid-2024, sought a declaration that two of its mining leases could not be impeached as long as they were the subject of a registered mortgage.

Roy Hill previously applied for a new mining lease to cover operations in 2017 and protect the validity of operations.

This followed Fortescue (ASX: FMG) founder and executive chairman Dr Andrew Forrest’s High Court campaign, lodged in 2013, to block sand miners, Onslow Resources and Yarri Mining (ASX: YAR), from operating on the pastoral land of his Minderoo Station.

Dr Forrest’s argument for the case focused on the two miners failing to submit a mining proposal and mineralisation reports at the time of the lease application.

Previously, submitting such reports late had not been an issue — until the High Court ruled in favour of Dr Forrest in 2017.

The Roy Hill licenses are based on two mining tenements granted in 2009 and, as the mining and mineralisation reports were not submitted at the same time as the lease application, there was concern around the validity.

In June 2024, to correct the lease issues, Roy Hill applied at the WA Supreme Court for a declaration that its original leases were valid, due to a subsequent dealings clause in WA mining laws, by the fact that ANZ (ASX: ANZ) has a mortgage registered over the tenements as part of an undrawn revolving credit line.

The WA Supreme Court found that, as there is no current challenge to the mining leases, any declaration would be in response to a hypothetical situation and granting a declaration would give the plaintiff protection that is not mandated in the legislation.