安奎拉与淡水河谷纠纷导致煤炭运输被取消

【安奎拉资源有限公司与巴西巨头淡水河谷因其在澳大利亚的三个合资企业产生纠纷，最终迫使煤炭装运被取消。佩思安奎拉昨天向澳市场宣布，淡水河谷已经对从昆士兰州Isaac Plains出口煤炭造成不良影响，导致客户取消周五的装运。】

AQUILA Resources is in dispute with Brazilian giant Vale across all three of their Australian joint ventures, with the latest fight forcing cancellation of a coal shipment. Perth-based Aquila announced to the Australian market yesterday that Vale had put the brakes on exporting coal from the Isaac Plains joint venture in Queensland, which led to a customer cancelling a shipment on Friday. "You have to ask yourself what is their (Vale's) agenda," Aquila chairman Tony Poli said. "It seems a contrived tactic to give them some leverage. "With each of the joint ventures we have with them there is an issue. It is disappointing that we find ourselves in this position." Aquila and Vale are now in dispute on all of their Queensland coal joint ventures, including disagreement on developing the Eagle Downs project and litigation on the value of Aquila's minority interest in the Belvedere coking coal project that Vale wants to buy. The Isaac Plains dispute follows five years of successful production and sales from the mine. It is over an agreement for the two parties to sell their 50% share of the product separately. Vale and Aquila have been in discussions since November, when the original joint marketing agreement ended, on how separate shipments of coal should be sent from the mine. During the talks, coal continued to be shipped from the mine, until last week, when the dispute hit a stalemate.

Vale Australia operations director Steve Badenhorst said the difficulties arose from limitations in the joint venture agreement. He said the agreement was not clear enough on how the parties should sell coal separately. "The inability to reach consent on a joint venture agreement is holding up a lot of value for both parties," he said. "We haven't reached a point where we aren't talking to each other. We still want to resolve it and we have contracts under a legacy agreement, which we are still honouring." Mr Poli questioned Vale's decision to stop Aquila from exporting its share of the coal, after it had continued to do so since the marketing arrangements ended in November. "The manager of the project had developed a (temporary) lifting agreement, which both parties had been working to," he said. "I don't understand why we can't continue to negotiate a lifting agreement and still supply coal to our customers during that time. Vale has decided to unilaterally draw a line in the sand." Mr Poli argued that forcing a halt to coal sales did not create a positive environment to negotiate a new agreement. "It seems to me it is not in either party's interest to play Russian roulette with the mine's production, whilst we have negotiations," he said. The miner questioned Vale's growth strategy, claiming the giant had signalled it wanted to increase its global coal assets, while "hindering" the process of each asset it held jointly with Aquila. Mr Badenhorst said the Brazilian giant had a clearly defined growth strategy, of which Australian coal was a key element.

来源：The Australian