Great deal of China in doubt
The great deal of China may be all hot air. Ian Verrender reports.
Resourcehouse chairman Clive Palmer is standing by the security of a $US60 billion ($68.4 billion) 20-year coal supply contract with a Chinese company, saying the buyer is commited to the deal.
He also said there are no current plans for an initial public offer of shares in his private company, Resourcehouse.
The Queensland billionaire told journalists today the tenure and amount of the export contract between his firm and China Power International Holding (CPIH) regarding his central Queensland coal project have been agreed.
He denied suggestions the contract wasn’t binding, saying it was binding in the legal sense, although half of the terms and conditions still needed to be worked out.
‘‘None of the deals of this scale ever go to court,’’ Professor Palmer said. ‘‘It really doesn’t make a difference whether we made a clerical error, the deal is going ahead.’’
Professor Palmer’s comments come after confusion earlier this week over the status of the deal, which was announced on Saturday.
Yesterday, Resourcehouse advised it had made an error when it initially named the counterparty as China Power International Development (CPID), rather than CPIH.
A Chinese news agency reported CPID denying it had reached a supply agreement regarding the project in the Galilee Basin.
Chinese media further reported CPIH saying the deal was a '‘framework’' agreement with work still to be done on the final contract before a definitive agreement could be completed. The reports were picked up Australian and international media.
Professor Palmer stressed today CPIH had confirmed its ‘‘strong commitment’’ to the coal project, and highlighted that other contracts related to the project worth billions of dollars had been struck.
Professor Palmer, who has been in Beijing, attacked media reporting of the deal, describing it as ‘‘very, very poor’’ and complained that ‘‘no-one checked’’ and ‘‘no-one contacted me’’.
He said the coal sales agreement was one of four signed in Beijing last Friday and repeated it was half completed.
‘‘The issues that are covered by the other half of the coal purchase agreement are things that we’ve agreed to agree upon later,’’ he said.
He said the parties aimed to finalise outstanding terms and conditions of the coal sales agreement by the end of April.
He played journalists a video recording of the signing ceremony in Beijing, during which a CPIH executive described the deal as a ‘‘framework’’ agreement.
The CPIH executive said the parties were ‘‘working hard on a final contract and it will take some more time.’’
Professor Palmer rejected queries about the value of the contract, saying the $US60 billion estimate for 20 years supply was based on current coal benchmark prices.
He also denied plans for an IPO of his private company, Resourcehouse, which was rumoured to float on the Hong Kong stock exchange.
‘‘I’ve announced no IPO in Hong Kong ever,’’ he said. ‘‘There is no proposal for the stock exchange in Hong Kong that is current for us to have an IPO.’’
AAP
