Clive Palmer paid one dollar for Queensland Nickel when he bought it from BHP seven years before it collapsed with the loss of hundreds of jobs and owing millions, a court has heard.

The billionaire businessman is fighting a lawsuit in the Brisbane supreme court against liquidators following the cash-strapped Townsville refinery’s demise.

They are chasing him for about $200m they say was owed to creditors when Queensland Nickel was shut down by administrators in early 2016.

On Friday, FTI Consulting administrator Kelly-Anne Trenfield revealed the mining magnate had paid just $1 for the Yabulu refinery when he bought it 2009.

Seven years later and with administrators called to take charge of the debt-laden business that allegedly made losses during three of seven years Palmer owned it, the refinery was worth the same amount, she said.

“That’s the anecdotal information I received,” Trenfield said when asked if she was sure Palmer had paid just $1 for the refinery.

“I know he took on obligations with that.”

Trenfield has told the court that when her team arrived at Queensland Nickel in January, the company was about $10m in the red, losing another $1m a week and had creditors circling.

A week later, Palmer’s team allegedly resurrected a little-known clause in the Queensland Nickel joint venture agreement that removed the refinery from administrators’ control.

Administrators were left with 550 employees to pay and no means to generate revenue to pay their wages, Trenfield said.

The court heard administrators were unable to accept the Queensland government’s offer to provide emergency funding because it would have required a costly environmental clean-up of the poorly maintained refinery.

Trenfield rejected assertions Palmer and his team had offered to take on the ailing refinery’s liabilities. “I valued that undertaking as being worthless,” she said.

Queensland Nickel collapsed three months later.

Palmer failed to turn up in court on Friday, despite being roasted by Justice Debra Mullins earlier in the week.

It was left to a lawyer for his companies, Chris Ward, to inform the court there were more problems with the former federal MP’s replacement expert insolvency witness.

Mullins had criticised the Palmer camp for their tardy efforts to find a new expert witness when she learned the proposed replacement had flown to Brazil and could not start work until next week.

The saga began at the start of the trial when the court heard Palmer’s original insolvency expert, Peter Dinoris, had become ill and resigned from the defence team.

This prompted the Palmer camp to make a last-minute bid to postpone the trial, which Mullins rejected.

The trial continues.