Australia’s richest person Gina Rinehart has announced a strong increase in profits from the A$10 billion majority-owned Roy Hill mine in Western Australia.
Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting said Roy Hill’s net profit in the year to 30 June 2024 increased 18% to $3.2 billion, driven by record iron ore shipments of 64 million tonnes through Port Hedland to markets such as Japan, Korea, China and Taiwan.
Roy Hill also reported a $1.4-billion in corporate tax and $665-million state and native title royalty payments.
Despite the improved result, Rinehart criticised the impact of what she considers to be excessive regulation and bureaucracy in stopping or delaying on new mining projects.
“The threat of competition from other nations is real, particularly if they are able to operate with less government tape, less approvals systems, and less government cost burdens,” she said.
“Australia’s increasing government intervention combined with ideological and expensive or impractical policies is negatively affecting new mining investment.
“It is critical that our politicians and governments implement ways to encourage business to grow and invest in Australia, such as to introduce special economic zones with less government red tape and less tax, or rebates.
“This does not mean handing out billions of taxpayers’ dollars to those who so lobby.”
Roy Hill is the largest revenue generator for Rinehart’s privately-owned Hancock Prospecting, which holds a 70% stake, with the balance owned by South Korea’s POSCO (12.5%), Japan’s Marubeni Corp (15%) and China Steel Corporation (2.5%).
The operation, which employs more than 2,800 people, includes an open pit iron ore mine about 110 kilometres north of Newman, a processing plant, 340-kilometre railway to the port of Port Hedland and a two-berth iron ore port facility.
Rinehart, Roy Hill’s executive chairman, is estimated to be worth more than US$30 billion (A$45.4 billion), according to Forbes.
Hancock Prospecting was founded by Rinehart’s late father Lang Hancock, who discovered the world’s largest iron ore deposit in 1952 in the remote Pilbara region of Western Australia.
However, she has significant expanded the business since taking over from Hancock as chair of the company on his death in 1992.
Roy Hill first shipped iron ore from Port Hedland on 10 December 2015 and has since loaded tens of millions of tonnes of shipments to key markets.