TMT Shareholders Retail Holding, page-71

Here you go dbd25
see @anatol post of March 2019:
[ David and more! ]

From my reading, that Precious Metals mob was quite notorious - interesting that the outgoing* chairman here (*post merger) was closely involved?
Financiers have looooooong memories about this kind of stuff and it seems Glencore (XStrata) was screwed good and proper by PMA?


https://imerysbritishlithium.com/project/windimurra-vanadium-western-australia/

Spoiler : Fraud too?

https://www.ft.com/content/c1aed1d6-08ba-11dc-b11e-000b5df10621
Xstrata fights back in vanadium mine dispute

Raphael Minder
MAY 23 2007

A 102-metre-long kiln dominates Windimurra, a vanadium mine that Precious Metals Australia, a junior explorer, is set to reopen after the site was abandoned three years ago by Xstrata, one of the world’s leading mining groups.

The kiln is the only major piece of infrastructure that Xstrata left in working condition, according to Shaun Bunn, PMA’s director of operations.
Perth-based PMA is investing A$200m ($164m) to repair the rest of the site and resume production early next year of vanadium, which is used to reinforce steel and in other alloys.
“Our task is to rebuild this whole place and this [kiln] is one of the few things Xstrata didn’t demolish,” Mr Bunn said during a visit last November. “It was a very messy fight but thankfully it’s over.”

Mr Bunn may have spoken too soon.

In March, London-listed Xstrata said it was considering legal action on the basis of new evidence about an allegedly biased investigation into Windimurra three years ago that it claims sparked a nationwide smear campaign against Xstrata.
Xstrata started mining Windimurra in 1999 as a joint venture with PMA that was then turned into a royalty agreement with its junior partner.
Although the site grew to yield almost 6 per cent of the world’s vanadium production, Xstrata closed Windimurra in 2004 after sinking A$186m of investments in the loss-making mine.

But PMA maintained Windimurra was sustainable, further accusing Xstrata of withdrawing to help control metal prices and boost the value of its other vanadium operations in South Africa.
PMA started legal proceedings against Xstrata for breaching the royalty agreement.
PMA’s stance was then strengthened by a parliamentary report conducted by the state of Western Australia, which concluded Windimurra “could have been economically sustainable in the long term”.

In 2005, Xstrata settled out of court – without accepting the basis of PMA’s claims – agreeing to pay A$17.5m and hand over Windimurra to PMA.
Yet, the Windimurra parliamentary report has resurfaced as part of a broader ongoing corruption inquiry into allegedly fraudulent political lobbying in Western Australia, which has cost the jobs of three state ministers.

A key figure in the inquiry has been Brian Burke, a disgraced former state premier whose lobbying firm worked for PMA. Mr Burke, who has continued to wield influence in Western Australia, served a prison sentence for fraud in 1994 after already being engulfed in a huge scandal in the 1980s, dubbed WA Inc, involving unlawful links between politicians and businessmen.

Xstrata has written several letters of complaint – including to John Howard, Australia’s prime minister – alleging that transcripts of the lobbying inquiry’s cross-examination contained “truly extraordinary” revelations about how the Windimurra report was doctored.
A spokesman said Xstrata was “considering its legal options”, as the latest evidence indicated “the report should have been thrown out”.
He added: “We were telling the truth three years ago and there was then a smear campaign against us.”

Meanwhile, Roderick Smith – who will step down as PMA’s managing director on July 1 but will remain as non-executive director of the company – said PMA had not influenced the 2004 investigation beyond commenting on the draft report when invited to do so and without breaching any parliamentary rule.

He said: “Corruption suggests something sinister but there was nothing sinister. They took account of our submissions just as they took account of some other submissions.”

Xstrata, however, says the draft report should not have been sent to PMA for comment as it was under parliamentary privilege and their proposed changes should not have been incorporated into the final report.
The state government refused to comment on any aspect of the 2004 report while the lobbying inquiry is ongoing.

Windimurra underlines the difficulties of timing investments in a cyclical sector liable to sudden price fluctuations. On the back of strong Chinese steel demand, Windimurra could now prove lucrative, with PMA predicting A$200m in annual revenues at current prices for vanadium.
Meanwhile, the lobbying investigation is casting a shadow over politics in a state that is driving Australia’s commodities boom.

Western Australia was recently named as the worst Australian state in which to conduct business becauseof regulatory inconsistency and ministerial interference, in a global survey ofmining executives by the Fraser Institute, a Canadian think-tank.