Wyloo fails in Minderoo Station licence appeal

Andrew Forrest’s Wyloo Metals has failed in its bid to throw out a Supreme Court judgment over a mining lease that includes a portion of Minderoo Station.

The billionaire-led resources company sued sand miner Quarry Park, alleging the latter’s mining lease and prospecting licence over 95 hectares of land of the Pilbara cattle station was invalid.

An injunction to restrain any transfer of the mining lease was granted in 2021 but Supreme Court of Western Australia Justice Paul Tottle dismissed Wyloo's application later that year, prompting Mr Forrest's private company to lodge an appeal.

In a judgment published today, the WA Court of Appeal upheld the original judge’s decision to dismiss Wyloo’s application.

Quarry Park was granted a mining lease in 2013, over land that included part of Minderoo Station in the Pilbara, the judgment reads.

According to the judgment, Quarry Park has spent about $2.5 million for exploration and mining on the mining lease area since April 2013.

In 2021, Wyloo applied for a prospecting licence over the area but the application came months after Quarry Park signed a deal to sell its mining lease and tenements to ASX-listed explorer Cauldron Energy.

Wyloo started legal proceedings for declaratory relief, alleging the mining lease granted to Quarry Park was invalid, and the area covered under the lease was Crown land open for mining.

WA Supreme Court Justice Paul Tottle dismissed Wyloo’s application in his 2021 judgment, finding there was an eight-year delay between the mining lease was granted and the legal action was launched.

The majority of the WA Court of Appeal bench upheld Justice Tottle’s decision, with Justice Robert Mitchell providing the only dissent.

In the Court of Appeal’s judgment, the majority found that a person dealing with a registered holder of a mining lease has protection under certain circumstances.

“That protection involves treating the grant or renewal of the mining lease as a valid grant or renewal,” the judgment reads.

“The interest in the mining lease obtained by a person dealing with a registered holder is immune from attack.

"The primary judge concluded that the lapse of time between Wyloo's incorporation in 2015 and the commencement of the primary proceedings on 22 January 2021, combined with capacity for Wyloo to have ascertained Quarry Park's failure to have complied with the essential preliminaries to a valid grant of the mining lease during that period, constituted an additional reason for not granting declaratory relief."

Orders for costs are yet to be determined.