Citic Pacific Mining sues recruiter for alleged truck fire damages

Citic Pacific Mining Management has claimed a Perth recruitment company should foot the bill for a fire that allegedly destroyed a $2 million dump truck in 2017.

The writ filed in WA’s Supreme Court this week outlined claims brought by Citic Pacific Mining Management and Sino Iron against Stellar Recruitment Perth.

CITIC Pacific Mining is the Australian subsidiary of Chinese company Citic and was established to manage Citic's first major investment in Australia, the Sino Iron project.

Under an agreement struck between the pair in January 2015, Citic claims Stellar agreed to provide ‘suitably qualified and competent workers’ for the Sino Iron project and that the work the contractors delivered would be done to an expected standard.    

One of the workers claimed to have been contracted by Stellar who started work at the site in April 2017 as a dump truck operator, is alleged to have been operating the $2 million truck when it caught fire.

In preparing to drive the truck down the incline, Citic claims the driver activated the load brake switch instead of a switch to control the speed of the truck, causing the brakes to overheat and the truck to catch fire.  

Workers at the site were unable to put out the fire, leaving the truck - which was owned by Sino Iron - ‘completely destroyed’, Citic has claimed in the writ.

Six years on from the incident and Citic wants the cost of the damages caused by the fire covered by Stellar, alleging the company failed to meet its obligations under the contract to provide a suitably qualified worker for the task.

The miner is seeking damages, of which the amount has not been disclosed, pre-judgement interest and costs.