Gina Rinehart has topped the 2020 AFR Rich List, with a net worth of $28.89 billion.

The wealthiest Australia this year was magnate and heiress Gina Rinehart. The executive chair of privately-owned Hancock Prospecting more than doubled her already formidable wealth over the last 12 months to $28.89 billion. It moves her again from her long-held position as Australia’s richest woman to the country’s richest person.

Hancock, which she inherited from her late father Lang Hancock, specialises in mineral exploration and extraction. More significantly, it remains one of the largest leaseholders on vast swathes of the Pilbara, home to the world’s largest iron ore deposits.

Rinehart’s success cumulated this year as Hancock’s Roy Hill mine paid out its first-ever dividend this week, after extracting one billion tonnes of iron ore over a period where the price of it keeps shooting higher as the world goes on an infrastructure spending spree.