Another of Clive Palmer’s companies bites the dust

PNG corporate bank accounts of Clive Palmer’s have been frozen and he faces a probe after another company collapsed.

Papua New Guinean corporate bank accounts belonging to Clive Palmer have been frozen and the resources tycoon will be investigated after another of his companies collapsed.

The Federal Court yesterday ordered Palmer Petroleum — which Mr Palmer recently renamed Aspenglow, the title of a John Denver ballad — be wound up, after it failed to pay $22 million to Singaporean company BGP Geoexplorer.

Richard Hughes and Timothy Heenan from Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu have been appointed liquidators, to chase the company’s debts for creditors and to investigate whether Mr Palmer breached his director’s duties. The liquidators will also investigate whether the company traded while insolvent.

“While we have only just been appointed, we have already moved to begin securing assets of the company and develop an understanding of its operations and financial position,” Mr ­Hughes said.

Mr Palmer was the company’s sole director and its secretary. He hired the Singaporean company in 2010 to survey the seabed off Papua New Guinea, where Palmer Petroleum held oil and gas prospecting licences.

The Weekend Australian revealed in March the Palmer Petroleum dispute could have serious implications for Mr Palmer’s flagship Mineralogy.

BGP alleges Mr Palmer, as Mineralogy director, signed a guarantee to pay the Singaporean company’s bills. Mr Palmer says Mineralogy did not execute the guarantee and it is invalid.

However, if the Queensland Supreme Court upholds the guarantee and Mineralogy does not pay, the company could be forced into liquidation. This would threaten Mineralogy’s mining rights over lucrative iron ore tenements in Western Australia’s Pilbara region.

Asked whether he was concerned about the exposure of Mineralogy to the collapse of Palmer Petroleum, Mr Palmer said “no”.

Mineralogy is Palmer Petroleum’s ultimate holding company and its sole shareholder.

Palmer Petroleum is the latest in a string of Palmer companies to fall into liquidation, with Palmer Aviation and Queensland Nickel collapsing under the weight of debts this year.