Morning headlines

Miners dig in on oil tax break

The mining industry will issue a blunt warning to the government not to touch the fuel credits scheme that provides tax breaks of about $2.5 billion to the industry for the off-road use of diesel.

Minerals Council of Australia chief executive Brendan Pearson will tell a Senate committee today that descriptions of the scheme as “fossil fuel subsidies’’ and calls for it to be scrapped are part of a “thinly disguised anti-mining agenda’’. The Aus

Port rescue

Colin Barnett believes new life will be breathed into his dream of a deepwater port at Oakajee, north of Geraldton, by Chinese state-owned giant CITIC Group after talks with the $430 billion conglomerate’s chairman in China on Saturday. The West

Revealed: Oakajee’s mystery backers

The mystery financers behind Padbury Mining’s $6.5 billion bid to resurrect the Oakajee project were behind last year’s failed $US640 million offer to tiddler Fairstar Resources. The West

APPEA pans gas rule

The peak oil industry body has strongly endorsed a call for Western Australia’s controversial policy restricting natural gas sales overseas to be ditched. The Fin

Scoping study confirms Thunderbird prospects

Sheffield Resources has staked its claim for its Thunderbird project near Derby in Western Australia’s northwest to be among the next round of mineral sands developments. The Aus

Record result expected from Rio

Rio Tinto is set for another record quarter from its West Australia-focused iron ore business that provides nearly all its profit as expansion and a productivity drive continue at the big miner. The Aus

Chinese to buy Glencore Xstrata mine

A major domino in the mining industry’s year of transactions has fallen, with the long-awaited sale of Glencore Xstrata’s $US5.85 billion Las Bambas project expected to trigger several other deals in Australia and globally. The Fin

Rob will ask Emirates to consider buying Qantas stake

The Australian government, which is eager to remove foreign investment restrictions on Qantas Airways, will encourage the carrier’s alliance partner Emirates to consider an equity investment in the airline. The Fin

The Australian

Page 1: The corporate regulator’s register of companies is being sized up for sale by the federal government as part of a plan that could provide a $1 billion cash injection to commonwealth coffers.

Page 1: Operations have been suspended at Clive Palmer’s nickel refinery, one of the largest employers in north Queensland, as a result of toxic sludge spilling from his tailings dams on the edge of the Great Barrier Reef.

Page 3: The final chapter in the One.Tel saga is now likely tomorrow, with a financial settlement of almost $50 million expected.

The deal was expected to be reached yesterday but it was delayed because NSW Supreme Court judge Justice Paul Brereton was unable to sign off on the final details of the deal until tomorrow.

Page 6: Labor voters have shown their displeasure with the party’s top Senate candidate Joe Bullock, with Louise Pratt outpolling the union boss in the count of the rerun West Australian election.

Page 6: The head of Australian Water Holdings Nick Di Girolamo was just an “old fashioned shyster, fraudster”, counsel assisting the Independent Commission Against Corruption Geoffrey Watson said yesterday.

Mr Di Girolamo was being questioned over a valuation of the company contained in a proposal to the NSW government to get a lucrative public private partnership.

Page 17: Retail fund managers have stepped up a campaign for a larger share of the $10 billion in annual compulsory employer superannuation contributions, challenging the make-up of a Fair Work Commission panel that will consider which funds are included as default options in industrial awards.

Page 18: The number of job vacancies in the resources sector has fallen more than 20 per cent over the past nine months.

Page 18: The widely flagged deal for a Chinese consortium led by the Hong Kong-listed and Melbourne-managed MMG to acquire the Las Bambas copper project in Peru for $US5.85 billion ($6.2bn) has been consummated, propelling MMG up the league table of the world’s biggest copper producers.

Page 18: Santos boss David Knox said the $18.5 billion his company has invested in Australian gas would not have occurred if gas exports had been restricted.

Page 19: QBE Insurance has confirmed it is mulling over the sale of its so-called “middle market” business in the US, potentially reversing one of its poor-performing major acquisitions under former chief Frank O’Halloran.

Page 19: The nation’s No 1 telco, Telstra, could pocket a 20 per cent premium on its $11 billion deal to participate in the Coalition’s rebooted National Broadband Network, according to preelection analysis prepared by Goldman Sachs.

Page 20: Platinum prices have rallied as a mine-worker strike in South Africa and sanctions against Russia stoke worries about supplies of the metal.

Page 22: Tiger Resources has been quietly beavering away at establishing itself as a long-term copper producer in the copper-rich Katanga province of the Democratic Republic of Congo for more than three years now.

Page 25: Coca-Cola Amatil investors lost another $520 million yesterday after ratings agency Standard & Poor’s cut its debt rating to just two notches above junk status, following the company’s warning of a 15 per cent fall in first-half earnings.

Page 27: The who’s who of Australia’s start-up industry have banded together to lobby the Abbott government to hasten its review into employee share option schemes, make crowd-sourced equity funding legal and create new visas for entrepreneurs.

The Financial Review

Page 1: Former David Jones chief executive Peter Wilkinson says South African retailer Woolworths needs to be careful about its plan to introduce more private-label clothing and goods if it buys the department store chain.

Page 3: The competition watchdog (ACCC) has been handed an embarrassing setback in its war against petrol discounts offered by supermarket giants Woolworths and Coles, after the Federal Court ruled both retailers can continue to offer customers discounts well above 4¢ a litre.

Page 5: The Labor opposition and Australian Council of Trade Unions have come to the defence of the industrial umpire after claims that pro-business commissioners are being sidelined from important cases.

Page 10: Industry leaders have called for the competition watchdog to take action against the construction union over an alleged boycott of building materials giant Boral.

Page 13: Regulators and fund managers are angry about claims that ASX shares are being manipulated towards the end of trading and insist there are legitimate reasons for the increased volatility at the end of the day.

Page 16:  Spruson & Ferguson, an intellectual property law firm founded in 1887, could be the latest legal house to join the ranks of the Australian Securities Exchange.

Page 17: Analysts are hopeful Rio Tinto will unveil a  strategy for disposing non-core assets, particularly in aluminium and coal, on Tuesday when it hosts its London annual general meeting and kicks off the release of March quarterlies for Australia’s three iron ore majors.

Page 17: Coca-Cola Amatil could slash more than $100 million a year off its cost base and re-invest the savings in to new products, advertising and promotions to reverse a two-year slide in earnings.

Page 19: One of China’s most powerful banks is seeking to strike better deals when it invests in Australia, as part of a global push to improve its lending quality.

ANZ Bank on Monday became the latest lender to announce an agreement with government-owned China Development Bank, broadening a 2009 memorandum of understanding with the bank.

Page 26: One of the world’s leading scientific thinkers has warned Australia it must shift its focus away from mining and manufacturing and prepare for an era of technology-led “perfect capitalism” if it is to avoid economic disaster.

Page 31: Goldman Sachs’s Australian equities head Dion Hershan is downplaying market concerns about high costs and potential sub-par returns from Queensland’s LNG projects, saying the sector offers attractive investor opportunities.

Page 32: Chinese-backed junior gold explorer Fifth Element Resources has succeeded in scraping together enough investors via Hong Kong to secure a local listing in May.

Page 33: Horizon Oil looks set to benefit from the progress it has made in commercialising its gas resources in Papua New Guinea, having secured key government approvals for its $US300 million ($319.3 million) Stanley gas condensates project in the Western Province.

The West Australia

Page 3: Parking fees in the city would rise at twice the rate of inflation this year under plans before the City of Perth.

Page 4: Rating agencies have put new State Treasurer Mike Nahan on notice, saying the Budget must deliver billions in savings and show he is prepared to sell poorly performing Government-owned services.

Page 24: The final condition of Glencore’s $US29 billion takeover of Xstrata last lear is set to be satisfied within months after the merged group struck a deal to sell one of the world’s biggest copper projects to China’s MMG.

Page 24: Financial planning software group Decimal will hit the Australian Stock Exchange on Thursday after wrapping up its backdoor listing via the Ian Middlemas-chaired former coal play Aviva Corporation.

Page 24: A Chinese conglomerate has abandoned plans to develop a major grain storage and loading terminal at Albany just 12 months after a company acting on its behalf took a 16-year lease on a site at the port.

Page 26: Efforts by the receivers of Forge Group to sell its most valuable asset – a US subsidiary – have suffered a blow from the loss of a $235 million contract.

Page 54: Phoenix Gold could be eyeing off the Greenfields mill owned by Peter Bartlett’s FMR Investments as it moves towards mining its Castle Hill project north-west of Kalgoorlie-Boulder.