Clive Palmer’s companies gain port access for Queensland nickel refinery

In 2018, Palmer was quoted as saying: “Port access … that’s the biggest stumbling block. As soon as the port confirms to us, even by letter, that we can import ore and export product in Townsville then we will immediately employ 100 people that day.”

In March last year, Palmer was promising to re-open to the refinery but again cited port access as the problem. At the time he promised: “We can create a thousand direct jobs in Townsville for the community and everyone can benefit.”

The Swiss-based group Zero Carbon Investek, which intends to buy the refinery, has two directors Australian David Rigoll, who resides in Switzerland and who has been involved with small to medium size mining deals for the past four decades, and is president of the group; and Swiss lawyer Hans Josef Frey.

Zero Carbon Investek has circulated a document to potential investors, as it aims to raise capital to invest in the refinery. In the document, Indian Ocean Capital and Green Bond Corporation are cited as advisers on the project. Indian Ocean Capital is run by Domenic Martino, a former Deloitte Australia chief executive, who has been a long-time adviser to Palmer’s companies.

Zero Carbon says it also intends to invest a further $US800 million ($1.1 billion) in a renewable energy project to power the refinery. The investment plans are backed by estimates that the value of the nickel and cobalt in the refinery’s tailings dam is $US9.4 billion.

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Zero Carbon Investek’s estimation of the value of the metals in the tailings dam is not corroborated in the liquidator’s report. The report, which relied on many experts, raised safety and environmental concerns about the tailings dam, but did not find any such value of the metals that reside in it. Market demand for nickel and cobalt have improved substantially since the report was written.

Another Australian involved with raising the financing for Zero Carbon Investek is Richard Petty, an accountant and former CPA Australia president and director, who resides in Hong Kong. He is not a director of the company. Petty, who has been a director of a number of small companies, has an online bio that claims he has “advised on projects with an aggregate economic impact in the hundreds of billions of dollars”.

Zero Carbon Investek was founded in 2021, as was Green Bond Corporation. Green Bond Corporation, which also counts Australians among its executives, is a Luxembourg-based, advisory group that says it “advises clients in the structuring and financing of large-scale, capital-intensive infrastructure projects”.

A Queensland Government spokesman said the Treasury department always did due diligence on such proposed deals. Zero Investek will also be subject to due diligence by the Foreign Investment Review Board before it makes a recommendation on the deal to federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers.

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