Uranium advocate Jonathan Fisher reckons yellowcake will be WA’s royalties saviour if iron ore collapses

The biggest uranium advocate in WA argues the commodity will be the State’s saving grace if a flood of new supply from Rio Tinto’s Simandou mine sinks iron ore prices and the State’s primary revenue stream. Cauldron Energy chief executive and avid nuclear backer Jonathan Fisher delivered an impassioned presentation to a WA Mining Club lunch on Thursday aiming to dispel “myths” about uranium and make his case to overturn a seven-year ban on mining yellowcake in the State. Political battle lines were drawn in June when Federal Opposition Leader Peter Dutton tabled a proposal to build seven nuclear power stations in Australia and have at least one running by 2035. Since then nuclear power has been tipped as a potentially election-defining issue as Australia races to find energy alternatives to fossil fuels. Asked what he thought would be the tipping point in his plight to lift WA’s uranium mining ban, Mr Fisher reckoned it would take an iron ore price “with a six in front of it” — a situation he believed could eventuate if and when Rio Tinto’s mammoth Simandou mine gets going. “A few more tonnes coming out of Brazil and seeing an iron ore price that starts with a six and that freaking people out,” Mr Fisher said. The $9.5 billion project in Guinea is expected to start producing in 2025 and has earnt the moniker of the Pilbara Killer amid concerns it could pose big competition to WA’s iron ore kingdom. Iron ore royalties are the lifeblood of WA’s economy and contributed $9.9b in cash during the last financial year, crucial to the $4.2b budget surplus. “Simandou is a fricking monstrously large project. It is going to come online in 2025. And it is bringing high-grade, fairly low-cost tonnes into the market . . . iron ore prices are going to plummet,” Mr Fisher told The West Australian. “And there’ll be way less royalties for WA. Right now, mineral royalties are 85 per cent iron ore. Well, that’s going to halve, so where’s your mineral royalties going to come from? It’s not going to be nickel. It’s not going to be lithium, and hydrogen’s a pipe dream. “We have an industry here that can deliver billions of dollars, and jobs, and be up and running pretty quick.” He said the two issues of uranium mining and building a raft of nuclear power plants in Australia were often incorrectly conflated. “I understand . . . people say, ‘Oh, it’s going to take a long time to build a reactor’. Fine. I can build a mine.” In March, WA Liberals leader Libby Mettam vowed she would overturn WA’s ban on new uranium mines if her party won government at the 2025 election. Premier Roger Cook dismissed Ms Mettam’s pledge and Mr Dutton’s recent campaign for nuclear power as a “distraction”.