Uranium miner ERA to fight Jabiluka lease decision in court

A decision to block a $50 billion Northern Territory resource project will be appealed, with Energy Resources of Australia taking the Commonwealth and NT governments to court.

Energy Resources of Australia will appeal the NT Government’s decision not to renew its Jabiluka mineral lease following advice from the Commonwealth.

A media statement released late on Tuesday said ERA “commenced proceedings” in the federal court against Federal Resources Minister Madeleine King, the NT Minister for Mining Mark Monaghan, the Commonwealth and NT governments and Jabiluka Aboriginal Land Trust “seeking judicial review of the renewal decision”.

This included the commonwealth government’s advice to the Northern Territory Government to refuse renewal of the Jabiluka mineral lease.

“ERA believes it had a right to have its renewal application lawfully determined and considers it was denied procedural fairness and natural justice in the decision-making process,” ERA’s statement said.

In 1998 more than 5000 people including Peter Garrett joined with Mirarr traditional owners to block the Jabiluka mine, owned by Energy Resources of Australia.

“ERA also considers that the decisions were subject to a number of defects including because they were unreasonable.”

ERA is also seeking an interlocutory injunction to stay the renewal decision and its enforcement of exclusion and requested an urgent hearing given the imminent expiry of the Jabiluka mineral lease on August 11, 2024.

The matter is set for a federal court hearing in Sydney on Thursday, August 8.

“ERA considers that its applications are warranted after taking into account the circumstances in which the renewal decision was made, which include the Commonwealth Minister providing her advice within two days of the renewal application being referred to her, and without providing ERA an opportunity to comment on information received and relied upon or other matters which she took into account.”

The legal action comes after ERA revealed it had received a non-binding offer from Boss Energy Limited to buy the Jabiluka project area for $550m, subject to due diligence and regulatory approvals.

ERA shareholder Willy Packer.

It said discussions were in initial stages until ERA received notice the proposal had been withdrawn following the Jabiluka lease announcement.

And while ERA is challenging the Jabiluka decision, the company’s largest independent shareholder, Packer and Co, has questioned ERA’s reaction “or lack thereof”, to the Jabiluka lease decision.

In a letter sent to ERA last week, Mr Packer said his company had invested $80m into ERA.

He said Jabiluka was arguably the world’s best uranium deposit, with resources in the ground worth more than $50bn, and would have minimal environmental impact because, if it had gone ahead the mine would have been underground.

“What’s more, if approved, Jabiluka would have minimal environmental impact being an underground mine, in contrast to the historic open pit mines at Ranger,” Mr Packer said.

“The world needs clean energy whether that be in the form of wind turbines or nuclear power plants and in that regard, Jabiluka would provide the critical uranium fuel to power 1 per cent of the world’s energy grid with carbon free electricity for the next 30 years.”

PM Anthony Albanese announced after the lease decision he would move to have the Jabiluka site incorporated into Kakadu National Park.