Ann: Chairman's Address and Presentation to 2021 AGM, page-30

Benefication plants aren’t the problem Daz. It’s having multiple contractors that have undercut each other doing concurrent works, on top of each other. The majors have worked out that they can take the lowest bid their contracts, divy those out to multiple contractors and force those companies into a position where they are trying to fulfill a contract that they are barely breaking even on. When they start to fail, the client simply brings in another larger contractor on cost plus to clean everything up and get it over the line.

BHP did it with South Flank, Rio is doing it with Gudai-Darri and FMG tried to do it with Iron Bridge. FMG failed because they went cheap on the design phase of IB and the contractors on site were paying rubbish money for trades. Covid struck and they weren’t able to hold on the workforce required with the money on offer, they also refused to pay for FIFO interstate, while BHP and Rio started flying workers from interstate on exemptions.