Not talking ‘state secrets’ court hears as MinRes pushes to see Chevron and Pilbara Ports Authority levy deal

Mineral Resources is pushing to pry open a private agreement between Chevron and the State Government’s Pilbara Ports Authority as part of rolling stoush over disputed levies. And the oil and gas giant — which is not a party to the WA Supreme Court proceedings — now has until next week to cough up which parts of the deal it believes should be kept out of the public eye. Silks representing all three organisations piled into court on Thursday to wade through the afternoon session and set out how they believe the delicate process should be handled. The Chris Ellison-led miner wants access to the agreement as part of its bid to fight off $5 million worth of port dues allegedly owed to the State Government-owned port authority on ore shipped from its flashy new Onslow operation. If unsuccessful in its challenge, the miner could be face a far larger bill over the life of the mine, which is working to hit full pelt of 35 million tonnes per annum over the next 30 years at least. The total bill in the long term could be in the order of $1 billion based on a 90¢ per tonne levy to use a shipping channel levy and a 50¢ per tonne charge for the wharf, as reported by The Australian. Chevron gets a clip of the channel fees because it developed the $3 billion Port of Ashburton during construction of its mammoth Wheatstone LNG hub. The port itself was handed over to the Pilbara Ports Authority afterwards. A representative for the gas producer has said it is “disappointing” that Mineral Resources “continues to seek to implicate Chevron in their failure to pay known fees for use of the Port of Ashburton.” “Subsequent project proponents, such as Mineral Resources, have benefited from our investment by avoiding having to make these capital investments themselves.” MinRes is refusing to back down, arguing previously that money made by a WA company is being “gifted to an oil and gas giant in Houston”. On Thursday, Mineral Resources’ lawyer Grant Donaldson questioned why the documents shouldn’t be released in their entirety for the court, but suggested Chevron could raise the specifics of its confidentiality concerns as they saw fit. PPA’s legal representative Kanaga Dharmananda told the court the organisation didn’t accept MinRes was entitled to the entire document. He suggested the authority would rather see a determination regarding the outstanding debt, and that “interlocutory skirmishes” were getting in the way of that. Chevron’s legal representative Pip Honey said Chevron accepted “the ball is in our court” but needed time to wade through the material. Justice Jenni Hill said it would be unusual for the court to embark on a “trial within a trial” over a matter she deemed hardly “state secrets”, but granted more time for the oil and gas giant and the PPA to submit any redactions by August 6.