Clive Palmer cattle station up for auction

Clive Palmer’s central Queensland cattle station will go under the hammer today.

Clive Palmer’s central Queensland cattle station will go under the hammer today to help pay off some of his cash-strapped nickel refinery’s debts.

Mamelon Station, a 6258ha beef cattle breeding and grazing operation 135km west of Rockhampton, will be auctioned on the orders of Queensland Nickel’s voluntary administrators, FTI Consulting.

One of Queensland Nickel’s parent companies, QNI Metals, bought the property in 2010 for $8.3 million. Queensland Nickel, the former manager of the Townsville refinery, collapsed into administration in January and owes more than $70m in entitlements to about 800 workers and $100m to trade creditors.

FTI Consulting is separately selling trucks owned by the refinery. The proceeds of today’s sale will be used to pay some of Queensland Nickel’s debts, after it was replaced as manager of the operation by another of Mr Palmer’s companies last week.

Meanwhile, the Palmer United Party leader’s Palmer Petroleum yesterday lost a civil case in Queens­land’s Supreme Court, judge David Boddice ordering it to pay standard costs to Singapore-based BGP Geoexplorer.