PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Mining personality Clive Palmer has vowed to appeal a court decision to dismiss Mineralogy’s efforts to terminate Chinese miner Citic Pacific’s right to export iron-ore from the Sino project through the Port at Cape Preston.

Mineralogy had claimed that Citic was in breach of an agreement with Mineralogy to hand over control of port facilities, once they were built.

In keeping with its insistence that Citic was operating unlawfully, Mineralogy had issued four termination notices to the Chinese miner.

In his ruling, Justice James Eldeman permanently restrained Mineralogy from acting on the termination notices and found that Mineralogy’s claims that Citic had breached agreements were “without any substance”.

“The termination notices did not allege any genuine breach. They did not involve any serious or persistent breach,” Eldeman was quoted by the ABC on Friday.

He added that the termination notices were issued as a lever for future commercial negotiations and were not issued in good faith.

“‘Not only does Mineralogy not have rights to possess, control, own, operate or manage the port terminal facilities, but the Citic parties were under a duty to operate and maintain them," Eldeman said.

Mineralogy on Friday said it would appeal the decision, adding that it was confident of a successful appeal.

Further, the Australian company said it was considering issuing further termination notices for what it called “continued breaches” by Citic at Cape Preston.

The company said the impact of the judgment would make little difference to the current operations at Cape Preston.

A spokesperson for Citic has, meanwhile, said the company was pleased with the court decision.

“It’s a positive outcome for the project, where we continue to export quality iron-ore concentrate from our terminal facilities. Having made such a significant investment in mining, processing and export infrastructure, we’ve always been focused on ensuring continuous operations and seeing the project reach its full potential,” the company said.

Mineralogy and Citic have been involved in an endless tug-of-war over the Sino iron-ore project and its associated infrastructure, in Western Australia.

Mineralogy leased the Sino iron mine site to Citic Pacific, which acquired the right to mine two-billion tonnes of magnetite ore in the Pilbara from Mineralogy, between 2006 and 2008. During 2012, the company exercised its option to acquire the right for another one-billion tonnes.

However, in 2012, Citic Pacific received notices from Mineralogy alleging that terms in the mining right and site lease agreement had been breached, with Mineralogy maintaining that it was entitled to a royalty payment of 3c/t of all materials taken from the mine area, including waste material.