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The man on top of China's pile

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Andrew Michelmore earned his mining spurs in his native Australia and then put in two years working for Russian oligarch and energy-and-metals producer Oleg Deripaska. Now, he sits atop Minmetals Resources as its chief executive and is the most senior foreigner working at a listed mainland-controlled miner.

Michelmore is also unusual in Chinese mining circles because of his internationally competitive pay packet. State-owned China Minmetals Corp, the parent of Minmetals Resources, does not disclose executive compensation. But Michelmore's annual compensation - excluding cash bonuses - is 16 times the 1 million yuan (HK$1.22 million) that Xiong Weiping, his counterpart at Aluminium Corp of China (Chalco), took home last year.

Minmetals Resources, which, like Chalco, is listed in Hong Kong and Shanghai, grew out of a pool of mining assets in Australia acquired in mid-2009 by China Minmetals, the mainland's largest metals trader. Last year, those assets - mostly zinc, lead, gold and copper - in the Australian states of Queensland, Western Australia and Tasmania, and in Laos were sold to Minmetals Resources.

Michelmore has a degree in chemical engineering from the University of Melbourne and holds a Master of Arts in politics, philosophy and economics from Oxford.

He spent 12 years at Australian mining and fertiliser company WMC Resources before heading Deripaska's mining and energy group EN+ Group. He later became chief executive of Australian zinc and lead miner Zinifex, which became part of Minmetals Resources.

You spent two years working for a Russian oligarch. How different is that from working for a Chinese state-backed enterprise?

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