Mine failure hurts town
THE collapse of North Queensland copper miner Cudeco has hit Cloncurry hard, its mayor admits.
Receivers and then administrators were appointed to Cudeco last month, while operations at the Rocklands mine, employing about 180 people, were suspended a year ago amid ongoing financial difficulties.
Cloncurry Shire Mayor Greg Campbell said the collapse had “hurt the town”.
He wanted to see if the mine could be restarted, possibly under new operators.
Cr Campbell said local businesses were owed money and loyal local staff who had stayed on last year after being told operations would restart had been left out of pocket.
“I think the company will not pay any redundancy. That’s really disappointing. They had solid local staff and they have been treated very poorly. Essentially, it’s all been undone by poor management,” Cr Campbell said.
The administrators to the collapsed North Queensland copper miner have been granted a six-month extension to meet with creditors, indicating it could be a hard road back for reopening the operations.
There are also suggestions the mine was beset by failings in its Chinese-designed plant and equipment.
The company’s administrators with Brisbane firm Cor Cordis this week announced they had sought and been granted an extension to February 2, 2020, on the need to convene a second meeting with creditors. Receiver and manager with FTI Consulting Kelly-anne Trenfield said the extension provided more time for FTI to look at realising Cudeco assets, while also providing administrators with extra time for their work.
“With assets like these we need to do our due diligence to ensure we have the information we need,” Ms Trenfield said.
Reports suggest Cudeco management was alerted to a litany of issues with the mine’s plant in 2016, which ultimately led to Cudeco’s collapse.
This included problems of blown-out piping, ineffective repairs, poor design and a failure of motors and equipment.
But Ms Trenfield said receivers had been unable to locate a report on these apparent problems.
FTI and Argonaut Securities (Asia) have secured funding from Cudeco’s financiers, which also included Noble Resources International and Valuestone Global Resource Fund, to complete a comprehensive technical and financial review.
The review will explore refinancing, a restructure or a trade sale of Rocklands.