Mining

BUILDING BILLIONS: Their offices were walking distance apart. Yet Tony Rovira had never met Gina Rinehart when Australia’s richest woman and her Chilean partner lobbed a takeover bid for Azure Minerals in 2023.

Iron ore is flowing from Fortescue’s Pilbara mines at record rates but the green hydrogen side of the global business continues its rout.

A startup backed by tech billionaires Bill Gates and Vinod Khosla says it has successfully tested a new approach for making steel that minimises planet-warming emissions without raising costs.

BHP’s Pilbara iron ore machine fired on all cylinders but inflation and slow construction has thrown a $2.6 billion spanner in the works of its Canadian potash push.

Global miner Rio Tinto has revealed it incurred about $US300 million ($460m) in gross costs over the first half of 2025 as a result of the US tariffs on aluminium exports from Canada. 

Australia’s richest person has suggested Rio Tinto’s incoming chief should move company headquarters to WA and made a tongue-in-cheek dig at the mining giant’s African iron ore ambitions.

Rio Tinto has chosen a boy from the Wheatbelt to be the next leader of its global mining empire.

The Prime Minister has called for deeper co-operation, telling industry leaders in Shanghai that ‘it is in both countries’ interests to ensure a sustainable and market-driven global steel sector’.

The boss of BHP’s most lucrative division is unsure how much damage the Fair Work Commission’s ‘same job, same pay’ ruling will wreak.

Business groups have roundly criticised a Fair Work Commission ruling in favour of unions against BHP, as mining and energy companies scramble to figure out what the landmark decision means for them.

Presentation notes to be used by new chair Malcolm Bundey in meetings with investors and proxy advisers this week says Mr Ellison’s planned exit timeline is being ‘reviewed’.

The unions have leveraged the Albanese Government’s controversial labour hire reforms to win a landmark decision against BHP, which is set to have a ‘flow-on effect throughout the mining industry’.

While many mining companies frown upon romantic mingling at their camps, Mineral Resources has fitted out its new accommodation complex with ‘love nest’ dongas and a plethora of resort-style facilities.

Gina Rinehart says net zero is an ‘unobtainable and expensive magic pudding’, and believes Australia should follow the lead of the United States.

Australia’s most prolific iron ore miner and the country’s richest person have agreed to invest more than $2 billion to keep the Hope Downs mining operation alive.