Copper jobs on the line

Power prices hurting

GLENCORE has threatened to axe 200 jobs from its Townsville copper refinery as the cost of rising electricity prices continues to place pressure on its processing facility.

The company wrote to the State and Federal governments last week stating that it could not guarantee the future of its Townsville and Mount Isa facilities.

It blamed increasing energy, labour, freight and rail costs, with its base electricity prices having risen by 100 per cent over the past three years.

In the letter, Glencore’s director of copper business Aristotelis Mistakidis said the company was investigating other options.

“Given the current electricity prices and uncertainty around future supply, we need to consider options for shutting our smelter and refinery and ship copper anodes direct to market and/ or refine at one of our other plants offshore,” the letter said.

“We are not in a position to guarantee continued operation of our processing assets, instead we review these assets on an annual basis.”

A Glencore spokesman said the company had been open and transparent with State and Federal governments about a range of cost factors.

“Our focus is on investigating options for secure, affordable and reliable energy, electricity supply at Mount Isa and Townsville to service our operations,” he said.

Treasurer Curtis Pitt met representatives of Glencore yesterday.

Mr Pitt said it was a chance to gain a better understanding of the issues.

“We agreed that the Government and Glencore should undertake further discussions on how both sides might work together on these issues,” he said. “We both have an interest in protecting jobs and investments in North West Queensland.”

Townsville Enterprise chief executive officer Patricia O’Callaghan said the resources sector was an extremely important industry for North Queensland.

“Glencore shutting down their refinery could have devastating effects,” she said.

“Energy costs are crippling North Queensland – we’ve been pushing for access to competitively priced gas. Both State and Federal governments have a role to play.”

Minister for Resources and Northern Australia Matt Canavan said the State Government must open up the energy industry to coal- fired power stations to curb power costs.

In March, the State Government dismissed proposals for new coal- fired power stations, warning new- generation stations delivered only marginal reductions in emissions which would result in increased power prices.

“Let people consider using our resources for our purposes,” he said.

“The Queensland Government owns 65 per cent of the electricity generated in Queensland and they are currently ripping out dividends from those companies to pay for their budget deficit.

“They are taking more dividends out than the companies are making.”