It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Friday, May 15, 2026
COAL
Sandvik Ground Support inks deal to establish local US manufacturing joint venture
Sandvik has signed an agreement to form a joint venture with Alpha Metallurgical Resources (NYSE: AMR) through which it will establish local manufacturing for its ground support business in the US market.
In addition to the joint venture, in which Sandvik will hold a 51% stake and Alpha 49%, the setup also includes a long-term exclusive supply agreement with Alpha.
“Re-entering the US ground support market with a local manufacturing presence is strategically important, and this initiative will allow our ground support business to strengthen customer relationships, shorten lead times and build a scalable platform for long-term growth in North America,” said Mats Eriksson, president of Sandvik Mining.
“Creating this joint venture with Sandvik is a step in securing our supply chain by manufacturing more of our mining materials here in Central Appalachia,” said Andy Eidson, chief executive officer of Alpha Metallurgical Resources. “We are excited about the expected benefit to Alpha and, more broadly, to West Virginia.”
Production is planned at a new 100,000-square-foot facility in West Virginia, primarily focused on rock bolt and resin capsule manufacturing, but with potential to expand the product offering over time.
In addition to the long-term supply agreement with Alpha, the joint venture will also support sales to third-party customers.
Alpha is a leading US-based producer of high-quality metallurgical coal, which is a critical component in traditional steel production. With a portfolio of mining operations primarily located in Central Appalachia, Alpha serves a global customer base across North America, Europe, South America and Asia.
POTASH/FERTILIZER
Family offices build stake in niche miner after stock soars 900%
Millennial Potash Corp. is advancing the Banio project, a large-scale potash development along Gabon’s southern coast. Credit: Millennial Potash Corp.
For decades, the risky world of early-stage mining ventures was the playground of institutional funds and commodity trading houses. But after a more than 900% rally in a little-known Canadian potash developer last year, a new class of investors is moving in: family offices.
Millennial Potash Corp. has attracted a group of ultra-high-net-worth clans that are increasingly bypassing traditional funds to take direct stakes in critical resources. Potash, a potassium-rich salt, is a fertilizer for crops ranging from cereals to potatoes, helping boost yields and plant resilience. The Vancouver-area miner is developing a potash project in Gabon and has no other revenue.
“We have actually seen very unusual interest coming from family offices,” said chairman Farhad Abasov. “Usually, we don’t see a lot of this capital coming into the junior mining sector.”
The investment push is led by The Quaternary Group, a Singapore-based investment entity representing Ross Hamou-Jennings, the former Asia chairman of Cargill Inc., the commodities and agriculture giant. Quaternary owns roughly 25% of the potash miner, and Hamou-Jennings is using his industry knowledge to bridge a valuation gap he identified in the company. He views potash as an essential, $30 billion niche market where global powers like the US and China lack self-sufficiency. The US added potash to its list of critical minerals in November, boosting Millennial’s shares.
The Banio project plans to use the deep-water port at Mayumba, along the west coast of Africa. That will allow shipments to reach major markets like Brazil while bypassing traditional choke points, according to Millennial’s website.
Despite a pullback after last year’s 900% surge, the company has a market value of about C$313 million ($228 million). SCP Research rates the stock a “buy,” banking on Abasov’s proven track record at Potash One and Allana Potash to drive the next phase of growth.
Millennial Potash shares rose 1.5% in early trading in Toronto Wednesday, trimming losses this year to 20%.
Another backer is Hong Kong’s Cavendish Investment Corp. This multi-family office, which generally invests between $5 million and $50 million, views fertilizers as strategic assets critical to navigating increasingly fractured global supply chains.
These firms are part of a growing club of private wealth that prefers direct ownership over managed funds. Colombia’s richest man, Jaime Gilinski, has repeatedly increased his stake in independent oil and gas producer GeoPark Ltd., seeing it as a vehicle to enter Venezuela’s recovering energy sector. Similarly, the heirs of Swedish tycoon Adolf Lundin spent nearly C$40 million in March to boost holdings in copper and diamond miners amid supply-chain squeezes.
Beyond Quaternary and Cavendish, Millennial Potash’s investor list is populated by family offices operating just below public disclosure thresholds. The company has attracted investments from a Canadian family office, a US-based office and another wealthy family from the Persian Gulf, all holding just under 5%, according to Abasov. He is talking to family offices in Hong Kong and Singapore to drum up more investor interest.
Jean-Sebastien Jacquetin, managing partner at Cavendish, notes that families are increasingly moving beyond passive investments.
“Sometimes families aren’t just managing wealth – they are active operators in sectors like mining, healthcare, or renewables,” said Jacquetin. “Given the current geopolitical environment and the war, people are going back to fundamentals.”
Many of these family offices, including Quaternary and Cavendish, already have a niche background in commodities.
Hamou-Jennings said he prefers to own large, direct stakes in bottleneck resources. Apart from Millennial Potash, he has invested in P2 Gold Inc., a Canadian precious metals explorer, and Surge Battery Metals Inc., another penny stock based in the Vancouver area.
“It is clearly happening,” Hamou-Jennings said of the rising interest from family offices in the natural resource space. “It seems to be increasing in Asia; I think it was more common a year ago in North America.”
He notes that many families wait too long to pull the trigger on these early-stage companies. “They shouldn’t think they can wait for the project to de-risk at a higher valuation and still get a private placement, because at that point, the company just won’t need the money,” he said.
Cavendish, the multi-family office run by the former chairman of a Hong Kong jewelry company, is heavily involved in commodities and metals. In August, the firm told Bloomberg that it was allocating roughly a third of its portfolio to the physical gold trade.
(By Diana Li)
Cameco halts Saskatchewan uranium operations after floods
A view of the area around Cameco’s McArthur River mine. (Image courtesy of Cameco.)
Canada’s Cameco (TSX: CCO)(NYSE: CCJ) has temporarily halted production activities at its Key Lake mill and reduced activity at its McArthur River mine after flooding damaged transport infrastructure in northern Saskatchewan.
The uranium producer said its sites were not directly affected by flooding, but the collapse of the Smoothstone River Bridge disrupted the primary route used to move supplies to McArthur River and Key Lake. Restrictions on an alternative road have also limited Cameco’s ability to reroute deliveries.
Cameco said it will not resume full operations until normal deliveries of critical operating materials can restart. The timeline remains unknown.
“If the Key Lake mill is down for a full month, McArthur River would almost certainly be forced into a total production halt,” Uranium Equities analysts said. They estimated the direct production impact could be about 1.5 million pounds of uranium.
The analysts said McArthur River’s slurry tanks and mobile truck containers can hold only about seven to 10 days of full production.
Cameco said the Cigar Lake mine continues to operate and its consolidated annual production plan remains unchanged. The company warned, however, that prolonged road restrictions and continued disruption to deliveries of critical operating materials could affect the 2026 production outlook for the McArthur River/Key Lake operation.
Any production shortfall may force the company to buy or borrow uranium to meet commitments, potentially weighing on free cash flow, BMO analyst Alexander Pearce said in a note.
Disruptions at McArthur River — one of the world’s largest uranium mines and a major contributor to global supply — could further tighten an already undersupplied uranium market and support spot uranium prices, Pearce added.
Kazzinc says its Zinc plants are running at reduced capacity after blast
Furnace operators at Glencore’s Kazakhstan precious metals refinery. Image: VisMedia
Mining company Kazzinc said on Tuesday that its zinc and lead plants at the Ust‑Kamenogorsk metallurgical complex in eastern Kazakhstan were operating at a reduced capacity after an explosion last week.
Three people were killed and five others injured in the explosion at Kazzinc’s zinc plant in Ust‑Kamenogorsk. The company, Kazakhstan’s largest producer of zinc, lead and precious metals – owned by Glencore – did not disclose how output has been affected.
Kazzinc said clean-up operations at the site and an investigation into the incident were ongoing.
(By Maiya Gordeyeva and Maxim Rodionov; Editing by Andrew Osborn)
US President Donald Trump and his Brazilian counterpart Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva are forging an unlikely partnership around rare earths as Washington races to loosen China’s grip on critical mineral supply chains.
Their improvised White House meeting last week underscored how geopolitical competition over strategic minerals is reshaping alliances, with Brazil emerging as one of the few countries capable of helping the US diversify supply away from China.
Lula told Trump that Brazil’s vast rare-earth reserves are open to investment from any country willing to process minerals domestically, while Trump sought to signal renewed US engagement in Latin America ahead of a key China trip. The April agreement by Oklahoma-based USA Rare Earth to acquire Serra Verde Group for $2.8 billion highlighted the scale of the opportunity.
“The Lula-Trump meeting was less a bilateral reset than a bid to keep a politicised relationship manageable,” Mariano Machado, principal Americas analyst at Verisk Maplecroft, said in a note. “Among the items discussed, critical minerals emerged as the one topic where both leaders can claim a win without resolving deeper political tension.”
Reality-check
Yet Brazil’s long history with rare earths suggests the geopolitical enthusiasm may far exceed the industry’s near-term reality. Despite holding the world’s second-largest rare-earth reserves, the country has struggled for decades to turn geological potential into sustained production. Environmental licensing delays, bureaucratic hurdles, volatile commodity prices and periodic waves of resource nationalism have repeatedly stalled projects.
Mining companies can spend five to 10 years securing permits, while growing public opposition following deadly tailings dam disasters in Minas Gerais has hardened scrutiny of new developments.
The tensions expose a broader disconnect between global ambitions for critical minerals and local resistance to mining expansion. Rare earths are increasingly viewed as essential for semiconductors, AI infrastructure, electric vehicles and military technologies, but communities near prospective projects often see limited benefits and mounting environmental risks. Machado said the Serra Verde transaction illustrates both the opportunity and the constraints facing the two countries.
“The concrete test is Serra Verde in Goiás, Brazil’s only commercial-scale rare earths operation,” he said. “USA Rare Earth’s proposed $2.8 billion acquisition gives Washington a route into Brazilian production. But Lula’s message after meeting Trump was clear: Brazil has ‘no veto’ over US participation, yet also no intention to offer preferential access.”
Brazil’s Congress is advancing legislation that includes a $2 billion guarantee fund and $5 billion in tax credits to encourage domestic processing of critical minerals. Lula told Trump the country wants investment and technology transfer while ensuring more value-added processing remains domestic. Machado said that balancing act risks turning commercial development into a sovereignty debate that could slow approvals and delay investment.
“Critical minerals are not the simplest part of the bilateral agenda, even if they are the most practical,” he said. “Washington is going all-in on alternatives to China across rare earths, niobium, graphite, lithium, nickel and copper; while BrasÃlia wants investment, technology transfer and domestic processing, without surrendering control over strategic resources.”
Second only to China
Brazil holds roughly 21 million tonnes of rare-earth reserves, second only to China and the Brazilian Mining Association projects $2.4 billion in rare-earth investment by 2030 as part of a broader $21.3 billion critical minerals pipeline.
But execution remains the central challenge. Licensing delays, land disputes, environmental scrutiny and limited processing capacity continue to cloud timelines for new developments.
“The risk for both sides is a development opportunity shifting into a de facto sovereignty debate, slowing approvals and dragging out business timelines,” Machado said. “This means Brazil can become a strategic rare earths supplier to the US — but not quickly nor on US terms alone.”
Race for critical minerals leaves EU struggling to keep up
Sunny footpaths under the Sandberg hill, Bratislava, Slovakia. Stock image.
For the European Union, the fate of a Cold War-era mine near Bratislava is becoming a litmus test for its ambition to break free from China’s chokehold over critical minerals.
Sitting in a wooded range of hills in Slovakia known as the Little Carpathians, the so-called Trojarova project is where Soviet engineers first discovered a rich seam of antimony in the 1980s. Its owners, Canada-based Military Metals Corp, are pitching the facility as a chance for Europe to secure access to an uncommon metal used in military equipment.
For crucial resources such as antimony, EU nations appear unable put up the money and act, leaving projects such as Trojarova open to being snapped up by rivals. So far, Military Metals hasn’t secured an offtake agreement from the bloc.
As US President Donald Trump prepares for summit talks in Beijing this week — and threatens to raise tariffs on Europe — the project serves to illustrate the dangers of getting left behind in a hotly contested race between superpowers.
China imposed sweeping export controls on most critical minerals and rare earths last year. While the US has aggressively pursued partnerships with resource-rich nations and funded projects all over the world to catch up, Europe has lagged.
“Member states are still reluctant to pool resources for mining and processing projects beyond their borders, even as geoeconomic realities demand it,” said Sabrina Schulz, Germany director at the European Initiative for Energy Security. “Financing remains the central bottleneck.”
The bloc’s formal strategy was articulated in the European Critical Raw Materials Act of 2023, which set targets that included extracting at least 10% of annual consumption of key elements, and processing 40% of them. Those goals spurred action to identify vulnerabilities and to funnel investment to securing supplies of metals crucial for batteries such as lithium.
Global rivals have since pivoted toward resources with military uses such as antimony, gallium and germanium, but Europe has yet to follow suit. Brussels officials don’t have a mandate to pursue similar policies to the US, and lack money, people familiar with the internal deliberations said.
That leaves niche mining projects owned by thinly capitalized companies struggling to take off, not least because of the difficulty for them to raise finance in private markets.
With Europe, budgets are stretched, and many EU countries are unsure on how to engage. For example, in Germany there still isn’t consensus between the economy ministry, chancellery and foreign ministry of what exactly a de-risking strategy in critical minerals actually entails, the people said.
The result is an administrative impasse that leaves European officials worried about getting squeezed, with the feeling in Brussels and in capitals described as a fear of missing out.
Fretting about being left out of any deal Trump might cut with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in their upcoming summit, the bloc last month reached an accord with the US to coordinate on policies to build secure critical minerals supply chains. For Military Metals, that’s a positive development that could result in joint US-EU investment and offtake partnerships for Trojarova.
Frank Hartmann, the official responsible for Asia at the German foreign ministry, told a March 24 event in Berlin that Europe is being too slow and operating on a “too limited scale.”
“What we have to do is long-term strategy, take money and funds into our hands to invest in these critical mineral funds for the next 10 years,” he said on a panel hosted by the German Council on Foreign Relations. “Otherwise, we never escape this dependency trap.”
The Trojarova project, acquired almost two years ago by Military Metals, epitomizes the challenge. The mineshaft there, protruding deep into the hillside, heads toward a murky gloom that seems endless, but a potentially bountiful opportunity might lurk within.
A shiny white metal that is often explored for alongside gold, antimony is largely found in China, Russia and Tajikistan. It’s essential for military applications such as munitions, night vision goggles and infrared sensors, which make up as much as 15% of demand. Other uses encompass fire retardants, and nuclear and renewable energy.
“Antimony is a textbook example of a small-volume mineral with outsized strategic impact,” said Schulz at the EIES. “Europe is almost entirely import-dependent, and supply is highly concentrated.”
She highlighted that China controls almost 80% of processing, pointing to another challenge. The Asian behemoth is pivotal not only as a source of such raw materials, but also as a refining hub. That’s one reason why Military Metals is pitching Trojarova’s riches to investors as a chance for Europe to catch up, with plans to produce ingots that can go direct to defense clients.
Alternatively, refining in Germany and Sweden could assist in smelting, meaning the facility could ultimately help establish an entire supply chain, from mining and processing, according to chief executive officer Scott Eldridge.
The mine, situated near the winemaking town of Pezinok in southwestern Slovakia, was first discovered and developed by the Soviets. When the Iron Curtain fell, the 1.7-km (1-mile) long excavation was abandoned, but it remained one of Europe’s most significant deposits of antimony.
Military Metals is too small a company to scale up the project on its own, and needs partners to invest and help develop an associated refining capacity. If reactivated, it could supply as much as a third of the continent’s annual demand, totaling about 6,000 tons, and be up and running in two or three years.
But the company — which has a market capitalization of less than $30 million — would need substantial funding.
Moreover, critical minerals are prone to wild price swings, and even in markets like lithium, several major projects have stalled as owners sought out government funding.
Whatever the merits of the company’s business case here, Europe’s money and resolve to secure such resources remain lacking. Germany’s own €1 billion ($1.2 billion) raw materials fund has only supported two projects so far and creates more hurdles for companies to qualify than it eliminates.
The EU Commission and member states have signed memorandums with producer countries — Spain agreed one with Brazil last month, for example — but US deals with the same countries are often bigger in funding terms and more ambitious on timelines for operationalizing the plans.
The Trump administration’s agreement with the EU reflects its push for so-called price floors, which guarantee minimum prices for producers that can’t be undercut by Beijing. European countries have been hesitant, but at some point might have little choice but to go along with the US-led initiative.
Meanwhile the region’s momentum to act has essentially taken a backseat to other more urgent crises. By contrast, despite the Trump administration’s recent focus on conflicts such as the Iran war, the president’s team of aides has been busy identifying mineral projects and bidding to secure them.
One American company has already approached Military Metals and asked to see the Trojarova project. Meanwhile just last month, the US government’s investment arm agreed on a $5 million deal to restart another dormant antimony mine in Northern Macedonia.
Thomas Hüser, the chairman of Military Metals, would like to prevent a similar outcome for Trojarova. The German native joined the company this year and was formerly a Glencore Plc manager.
“What we are still lacking is not ambition, but execution,” he said. “Europe’s raw materials strategy remains fragmented, slow, and often disconnected from industrial reality.”
(By Jenny Leonard and Jody Megson)
Japan’s Sojitz eyes Southeast Asia for new rare earths supply
Japanese trading house Sojitz Corp. is looking to Southeast Asia and other regions as new potential sources of rare earths outside Australia, as it aims to boost output and diversify its supply chain of the highly sought-after materials.
“Areas connected to southern China such as Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam will be potential regions that the company will look into,” chief financial officer Makoto Shibuya told Bloomberg News this week. The company will also consider India and other countries if suitable rare earths investment opportunities exist there, he added.
Rare earths are among the critical minerals used across high-tech manufacturing, including to build the powerful magnets used in electric vehicles, mobile phones and missile systems. China dominates the global supply chain for the materials, which has given it crucial leverage in trade and diplomatic negotiations, and countries including Japan are working to reduce their reliance on the Asian giant.
Sojitz, alongside Tokyo-backed energy agency Jogmec, has been in a joint venture with Australia-based Lynas Rare Earths Ltd. for more than a decade. They agreed in mid-March to start talks on mineral exploration and development of rare earth resources, including possible new mines “both in and outside Australia.” Sojitz has said its primary objective is to seek other sources besides Lynas’ major mining site at Mt. Weld in Western Australia.
As for its energy portfolio, Sojitz has no appetite either for a stake in the Alaska LNG project or to offtake volumes from the planned American venture as it’s simply too costly, Shibuya said. The proposed Alaska plant is backed by US President Donald Trump and often dismissed as fanciful by many in the industry.
Energy accounts for only around 10% of Sojitz’s total investments over the past decade and management has already been trimming that part of the business. Liquefied natural gas is one of its few remaining energy-related investments, but the company says it will only pursue projects that have been carefully scrutinized.
Japan’s government last year agreed with Washington to invest $550 billion in the United States, including possibly in the Alaska LNG project, in exchange for reducing tariffs on Japanese products to 15%.
(By Yusuke Maekawa and Koh Yoshida)
U.S. is Set to Become Europe's Largest Gas Supplier, Overtaking Norway
The FSRU import terminal at Brunsbuttel (press handout courtesy RWE)
Europe may have freed itself from excessive reliance on Russian natural gas, but only by replacing it with another foreign supplier, according to a new analysis by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA). The United States is on track to become the EU's largest gas supplier of any kind this year, overtaking regional energy security partner Norway.
The U.S. is overcoming Norway's pipeline-gas advantage by dint of the rapid development of U.S. Gulf Coast LNG plants, as well as the sudden unavailability of Middle Eastern supplies due to the Iran conflict. Qatar, normally the second-largest LNG exporter in the world, now finds itself on the wrong side of the Strait of Hormuz for global shipping. As a result, American liquefaction terminals now account for about two thirds of all European LNG imports - and this could rise to 80 percent by 2028, according to IEEFA.
For the same reason, shipments of Russian-sourced LNG into Europe are also rising and are now at the highest level since the start of the invasion of Ukraine, despite the EU's plans to ban these cargoes by the end of next year. Russian LNG imports rose by 16 percent year-on-year in the first quarter alone.
"LNG has become the Achilles’ heel of Europe's energy security strategy, leaving the continent exposed to high gas prices and to new forms of supply disruption," said IEEFA lead Europe analyst Ana Maria Jaller-Makarewicz in a statement. "The 2026 energy crisis shows that as long as European countries choose to rely on gas, they must accept the geopolitical risks that come with it."
Part of the solution is simply cutting demand. Europe's natural gas consumption is on track to shrink by 14 percent by 2030, with more-expensive LNG accounting for a disproportionate share of the declining supply. Even more could be done by speeding up heat-pump adoption in the EU residential market, the think tank says. This has implications for the number of import terminals that the EU needs, and IEEFA thinks that there will likely be excess import infrastructure capacity by 2030.
Trump’s designs on Greenland prod investment, tourism likely to pay off faster than mines
New focus on Greenland since Donald Trump declared his aim to seize it could help boost investment there, with Arctic tourism likely to pay off faster than ambitious future plans to mine for minerals, the head of Denmark’s export credit agency said.
The governments of Greenland and Denmark have rejected Trump’s repeated demands that the self-governing Danish territory become part of the United States. But since Trump’s designs thrust Greenland into the headlines, there has been a surge of interest in doing business there.
“I am actually convinced that it is different this time. There is a different sense of urgency,” said Peder Lundquist, chief executive of Danish export credit agency EIFO.
“We believe there is a faster path to local value creation in tourism than there is in raw materials,” said Lundquist. “Raw materials have a long-term and solid value creation, but it is over decades.”
Tourism in Greenland has been held back by limited capacity in the peak summer months. Among the projects EIFO is helping fund is a study of the potential to increase visits to the area around the town of Ilulissat on the island’s west coast, soon to receive an international airport
Nearby Disko Bay is rich in the Arctic wildlife and dramatic scenery that draw cruise ships. The analysis will look into harbour capacity, feeder infrastructure and spreading visitors across the area.
Trump has said the United States needs Greenland for its strategic location and for the mineral wealth beneath its ice, including gold and precious rare earth materials used in tech products. But so far there has been little mining on the island, whose 57,000 residents tend to elect leaders that promise to preserve its natural environment.
Greenland’s Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen, speaking to journalists in Copenhagen on Tuesday, said his government was open for business but would not compromise on environmental protection.
“We have high environmental standards and that’s just how it is in Greenland, because we live off the nature, we live off the sea and that will never change no matter how many critical rare earth minerals we have.”
The European Union has said it aims to double financial support to Greenland, and has picked the GreenRoc graphite project, a company EIFO has also backed, as critical to increase the bloc’s supplies.
Nevertheless, Lundquist said he did not expect major mining projects to materialize at scale just yet, both because of those environmental standards, and because large-scale extraction was not commercially viable without public-sector guarantees.
“My claim would be that if you want this at larger scale, you need political backing of some kind,” he said. Such support could include minimum price guarantees for extracted materials, potentially from the EU or the Danish government.
At smaller scale, deals are moving. EIFO expects 3-5 new transactions in 2026 and is considering participating in the financing of Suliaq, a subsidiary of gold miner Amaroq, which is seeking $20 million to $35 million to procure equipment for Arctic mining currently scarce or unavailable in Greenland.
The Solomon Hub is Fortescue’s flagship iron ore mine and production site. (Image courtesy of Fortescue)
Fortescue (ASX: FMG), one of the world’s biggest iron ore miners, must pay more than A$150 million ($108 million) to an Australian Indigenous group after a court found it it damaged culturally significant sites without consent while operating the Solomon Hub mine.
The Federal Court of Australia ruled the miner caused “significant damage” to the cultural heritage of the Yindjibarndi people in Western Australia’s Pilbara region, awarding A$150 million for cultural loss and A$100,000 (about $73,000) for economic loss. The Yindjibarndi Ngurra Aboriginal Corporation had sought as much as A$1.8 billion ($1.3 billion) in compensation.
Judge Stephen Burley said the community held “deep and visceral” connections to the land and that “significant damage has been done to Yindjibarndi songlines and other areas of cultural heritage.”
“Fortescue accepts that the Yindjibarndi People are entitled to compensation,” a company spokesperson said in an emailed statement. The company noted it would review the court’s full reasons for the decision once published.
Long-dragged out dispute
The dispute dates back more than two decades after the Yindjibarndi people filed a native title claim in 2003. Fortescue began mining before the matter was resolved and later fought the case in court after the Yindjibarndi secured exclusive native title rights in 2017 over a 2,700-sq.-km area rich in iron ore deposits.
Fortescue is the world’s fourth-largest iron ore producer, with executive chairman and founder Andrew Forrest building a multibillion-dollar fortune as China’s industrialization fuelled soaring demand for iron ore, the key ingredient in steelmaking.
The ruling marks one of the largest compensation awards under Australia’s native title laws and represents a significant ESG and legal setback for a major global miner.
A spokesperson for the Yindjibarndi Aboriginal Corporation did not immediately respond to a MINING.COM request for comment.
Australian High Court Says Shipping Company Cannot Limit Liabilities
CCTV caught images of the cement carrier approaching the tugs (ATSB / TasPorts)
Four years after a docking accident caused the loss of two tugs and caused significant environmental damage, Australia’s High Court has ruled the shipping company CSL Australia cannot limit its liabilities resulting from the incident. The case has gone back and forth in the courts as TasPorts, operator of the Devonport harbor where the incident took place and owner of the tugs, sued to recover its losses.
The case stems from a January 2022 incident when the Australian-flagged cement carrier Goliath (15,539 dwt), operated by CSL Australia, was maneuvering into the dock at Devonport. The master of the vessel was conducting the maneuver. His practice was to maneuver using the main engine telegraph for power control; the bow thruster control; and the joystick for the specialized VecTwin rudder angle control, according to the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB).
In its report, ATSB found that the ship was not responding as the master expected, and then suddenly the vessel had picked up speed to four knots and was still accelerating. As the ship closed in on the wharf, the master looked at the rudder angle indicator and determined that both rudders were amidships, not the rudder angle set on the VecTwin joystick. ATSB found the incorrect settings caused the allision where the vessel struck the wharf as well as two docked tugs, York Cove and Campbell Cove, which were badly damaged and sank at the pier.
There was an estimated 69,000 liters of diesel and other fuel on the two tugs, which leaked into the river. TasPorts undertook the clean-up, and more than six months later, the salvage of the two tugs.
TasPort sued for approximately A$22 million (US$16 million). CSL Australia did not deny liabilities in for the incident but sought to invoke the convention for the Limitation of Liability for Maritime Claims. It is a long-standing principle of maritime law, with the most recent version of the IMO Convention drafted in 1976 and in force since 2004. While the limit of liability for claims covered was raised considerably, it still uses a formula based on tonnage to determine liabilities.
Under the formula, CSL asserting its liability should have been limited to no more than A$15 million (US$11 million).
A Federal Court judge initially found in favor of CSL, but TasPort won on appeal in front of the full court. Today (May 13), the High Court dismissed an appeal from the Full Court of the Federal Court of Australia. The case had come down to the fact that Australia, when it adopted the convention, had elected not to adopt certain provisions. The courts debated where CSL’s liability fell within the convention. The High Court finally ruled Australia had not adopted provisions that limit the liabilities for the raising, removal, and destruction of a sunk or wrecked ship.
Experts point out that this could have wider ramifications in Australia and future liability cases. Similar issues will also be debated elsewhere, including in a U.S. federal court in Baltimore in the coming weeks. Grace Ocea, the owner of the containership Dali, and Synery Marine Group, operators of the containership that destroyed the Francis Scott Key Bridge, have sought to invoke an 1850s law that would let them cap liabilities at the value of the vessel and its cargo. Plaintiffs ranging from the City of Baltimore to cargo owners, the families of six people killed when the bridge collapsed, and local businesses, are seeking to block the limitation of liability.
The problems for CSL Australia, however, are not over from the 2022 incident. The company has also been charged with causing serious environmental damage. A legal case is still pending on those charges.
