Aust. aluminium plant to halve output

Press, 16 November 1981, Page 12

Aust. aluminium plant to halve output

By

TOM BRIDGMAN,

NZPA, Sydney

The severe decline in the world market for alumina has led to a decision to halveproduction at the Gove altimina plant in the Northern Territory of Australia. The cut in production will mean that about 200 to 250 people employed at the plant. at Nhulunbuy will lose their jobs.

One of the two alumina process lines in the bauxite treatment plant would close almost immediately, said the site manager, Mr Jim Strong.

“The severe decline in the world market for aluminium due to the general downturn in economic activity has made it impossible to use the current levels of alumina production,” he said. The Gove joint venture is managed by Nabalco, Ltd, and is a joint Swiss-Austra-lian project entailing the mining of bauxite and pro-

cessing it to alumina for export.. Partners in the venture are Swiss Aluminium . Australia, Ltd, (Austraswiss), the wholly owned subsidiary of Alusuisse, which holds 70 per cent of the venture, and Gove Alumina, Ltd.

Gove Alumina is 51 per cent owned by the Australian sugar and energy giant, C.S.R., Ltd, the rest being split among six other Australian shareholders. Earlier this month Alusuisse withdrew from the Aramoana aluminium smelter project on the grounds that the electricity and freight costs were too high. Gove Alumina decided to stay in the project being developed with South Pacific Aluminium. The Gove Alumina refinery has an annual production capacity of about 1.1 million tonnes using the two process lines. This will be halved when one of the process plants closes. ’

Under the existing arrangements at Gove, Swiss Aluminium and Gove each took the output in proportion to their equity in the venture, that is 70 per cent and 30 per cent respectively'. But with the shut-down this will change, all of the production cut being born by the Swiss-owned company, and Gove to take its annual alumina entitlement of about 330,000 tonnes a year. The Nabalco run plant at Gove has for the last 11 weeks been the subject of a bitter strike over workers’ play claims. The strike had divided the small community of 4000 people who lived at Nhulunbuy, an isolated area at the tip of Arnhem Land 650 km east of Darwin in the far north of Australia. A spokesman for Swiss Aluminium in Sydney said the strike had influenced the company’s decision to cut production at Gove but the slump in the world alum-

inium market was the chief reason.

But the unionists have voted to return to work, after recommendations from the Australian Council of Trade Unions.

The return to work will allow talks to proceed on the new pay award and also the question of the redundancies.

About 40 New Zealanders work at Gove for Nabalco. In other aluminium industry developments, contractors on the $1 billion Alcoa smelter at Portland in Victoria have been asked to calculate the costs to Alcoa if the project is scrapped.

The project has been under a cloud since the State Electricity Commission announced increased power tariffs in August.

Alcoa has not made any final decision on the smelter as it is awaiting a state government report on the effect of the increased power charges.