Fortescue Metals Group has been forced to apologise to an important traditional owner group in Australia’s iron ore heartland after breaking a government-imposed condition which required the company to wait for indigenous elders to be present when a culturally significant site was developed.

The broken promise has exacerbated tensions with the Eastern Guruma people whose ancestral lands host Fortescue’s Solomon mining hub, and the incident may yet land Fortescue in legal trouble.