Sino Iron a lesson in how not to start a mine WHEN Clive Palmer hitched his wagon to Chinese company Citic Pacific in 2006, the tycoon was licking his lips at the prospect that his pockets would soon be lined with royalties worth hundreds of millions of dollars a year from a massive new iron ore mine in the Pilbara. But more than seven years after signing the boom-time deal with Citic, Palmer is yet to receive any significant royalty payments from the Sino Iron project.