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 RONPhos Logo | |
| Company type | State-owned enterprise |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2005 |
| Headquarters | |
Key people |
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| Products | Phosphate mining |
| Website | http://ronphos.com.au/ |
The Republic of Nauru Phosphate Corporation (RONPhos) is a government-owned company controlling phosphate mining in Nauru. The company was previously known as the Nauru Phosphate Corporation (NPC).
In the early years of the Nauru Phosphate Royalties Development Trust, it financed the construction of two of five high-rise luxury condos in Hawaii (on the island of Oahu). The five towers (two completed as of October 2005) are on prime Honolulu real estate with ocean views and represent a benchmark in Honolulu luxury high-rises. Other investments included Nauru House in Melbourne and Hawaiki Tower in Honolulu. These luxury properties were only part of an international real estate portfolio that stretched into countries including Australia, the Philippines, Fiji, Guam, Samoa, the US, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom.
Financial mismanagement and extravagant government spending (i.e., investing A$4 million in a London play, Leonardo the Musical: A Portrait of Love , about Leonardo da Vinci's love life which flopped after weeks of bad reviews) led to increased spending—and increased loans—which were levied upon the real estate holdings of the Nauru Phosphate Royalties Trust. One loan, of A$236 million from General Electric, which was used as a loan to pay off all other loans, could not be paid back by the government. This led to GE seizing Nauru's international real estate developments, including the trademark Nauru House in Australia.
Following the collapse of phosphate mining in 2002 due to the virtual exhaustion of financially viable resources, repatriation of many foreign workers began. From 2004 to 2005, foreign workers were reduced from 1,478 to 470. Most of the workers were from Kiribati and Tuvalu.
On July 1, 2005, during a managerial restructuring, the Nauru Phosphate Corporation formally changed its name to the Republic of Nauru Phosphate Corporation to signal change. Today, RONPhos currently employs 20.4 per cent of the working population of the Republic of Nauru.
Although the initial layer of phosphate has been mined out (approximately 100 million tonnes), a secondary level of phosphate is believed to exist, holding nearly 20 million tonnes of minable resources. RONPhos is beginning to develop plans for its economical extraction.
Nauru, officially the Republic of Nauru and formerly known as Pleasant Island, is an island country and microstate in Micronesia, part of Oceania in the Central Pacific. Its nearest neighbour is Banaba of Kiribati, about 300 km (190 mi) to the east.
The history of human activity in Nauru, an island country in the Pacific Ocean, began roughly 3,000 years ago when clans settled the island.
The demographics of Nauru, an island country in the Pacific Ocean, are known through national censuses, which have been analysed by various statistical bureaus since the 1920s. The Nauru Bureau of Statistics have conducted this task since 1977—the first census since Nauru gained independence in 1968. The most recent census of Nauru was on 30 October 2021, when population had reached 11,680 people. The population density is 554 inhabitants per square kilometre, and the overall life expectancy is 63.9 years. The population rose steadily from the 1960s until 2006 when the Government of Nauru repatriated thousands of Tuvaluan and I-Kiribati workers from the country. Since 1992, Nauru's birth rate has exceeded its death rate; the natural growth rate is positive. In terms of age structure, the population is dominated by the 15–59-year-old segment (57%). The median age of the population is 21.6, and the estimated gender ratio of the population is 101.8 males per 100 females.
The politics of Nauru take place in a framework of a parliamentary representative democratic republic, whereby the President of Nauru is the head of government of the executive branch. Legislative power is vested in both the government and the parliament. The Judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature.
The economy of Nauru is tiny, based on a population in 2019 of only 11,550 people. The economy has historically been based on phosphate mining. With primary phosphate reserves exhausted by the end of the 2010s, Nauru has sought to diversify its sources of income. In 2020, Nauru's main sources of income were the sale of fishing rights in Nauru's territorial waters, and revenue from the Regional Processing Centre.
Denigomodu is a district in the western part of the island of Nauru. It is the most populous district in Nauru.
René Reynaldo Harris was President of the Republic of Nauru four times between 1999 and 2004. He was a Member of Parliament from 1977 to 2008.
Banaba is an island of Kiribati in the Pacific Ocean. A solitary raised coral island west of the Gilbert Island Chain, it is the westernmost point of Kiribati, lying 185 miles (298 km) east of Nauru, which is also its nearest neighbour. It has an area of six square kilometres (2.3 sq mi), and the highest point on the island is also the highest point in Kiribati, at 81 metres (266 ft) in height. Along with Nauru and Makatea, it is one of the important elevated phosphate-rich islands of the Pacific.
A royalty trust is a type of corporation, mostly in the United States or Canada, usually involved in oil and gas production or mining. However, unlike most corporations, its profits are not taxed at the corporate level provided a certain high percentage of profits are distributed to shareholders as dividends. The dividends are then taxed as personal income. This system, similar to real estate investment trusts, effectively avoids the double taxation of corporate income.
Nauru House is a landmark 52-storey building located in the Melbourne central business district, Victoria, Australia. The building was designed by architectural firm Perrott Lyon Timlock & Kesa and completed in 1977.
Marcus Ajemada Stephen is a Nauruan politician and former sportsperson who previously was a member of the Cabinet of Nauru, and who served as President of Nauru from December 2007 to November 2011. The son of Nauruan parliamentarian Lawrence Stephen, Stephen was educated at St Bedes College and RMIT University in Victoria, Australia. Initially playing Australian rules football, he opted to pursue the sport of weightlifting, in which he represented Nauru at the Summer Olympics and Commonwealth Games between 1990 and 2002, winning seven Commonwealth gold medals.
The British Phosphate Commissioners (BPC) was a board of Australian, British, and New Zealand representatives who managed extraction of phosphate from Christmas Island, Nauru, and Banaba from 1920 until 1981.
The Nauru Phosphate Royalties Trust (NPRT) was a sovereign wealth fund developed by the government of the Republic of Nauru in which the government invested money from the state-owned mining company, Nauru Phosphate Corporation. This money was then re-invested in a real estate portfolio, among other things, to provide the government with a reliable national income following the depletion of minable phosphates on the island. Although at one time successful, mismanagement and corruption later essentially bankrupted the fund, thus virtually bankrupting the entire Republic.
The economy of Banaba and Nauru has been almost wholly dependent on phosphate, which has led to environmental disaster on these islands, with 80% of the islands’ surface having been strip-mined. The phosphate deposits were virtually exhausted by 2000, although some small-scale mining is still in progress on Nauru. Mining ended on Banaba in 1979.
Tito v Waddell [1977] Ch 106 is an English trusts law case, concerning what counts as a trust, and creates fiduciary duties, and when specific performance will be ordered. It is important as an historical case that forced the eviction of the people from the island of Banaba. On the points of specific performance, it has been superseded in the cases of Ruxley Electronics Ltd v Forsyth. It stands as an historical example of an indigenous community exploited and expropriated by the mercantile mining interests of the British Empire.
Nauru–Philippines relations are the bilateral relations between Nauru and Philippines. The Philippines maintains relations with Nauru through its embassy in Canberra, Australia
The Pacific Star Building, also known as the Nauru Building, is a 29-storey high-rise building in Makati, Metro Manila, Philippines. It was the tallest building in the country upon its completion.
The Nauru Rehabilitation Corporation is a state-owned enterprise established by the Republic of Nauru in May 1999, following the passing of the Nauru Rehabilitation Corporation Act in July 1997. Its primary mission is to rehabilitate land destroyed by the phosphate industry, both before and after its independence, making them once again economically useful to the small island-nation.
The New Nauru Stadium is a multi-use stadium currently under construction on the Pacific island nation of Nauru.
