The world’s biggest miner, BHP Billiton, said yesterday it would axe Australian jobs, while rival Rio Tinto shut down an iron ore smelter, in response to weakening world commodity demand.
Responding to union claims that up to 400 contract jobs would be lost in Queensland state, a spokeswoman said BHP believed metallurgical coal output for this year would be approximately 10 percent to 15 percent below capacity.
“We adjust our contract requirements to suit the level of activity of our business,” Samantha Evans said.
She would not confirm or deny the exact number of jobs cut.
BHP announced in January it would cut about 6,000 jobs worldwide in response to the global economic downturn, saying it expected to lose contractors as conditions deteriorated.
The mining union said 400 contractors had been told they would lose their jobs, some of whom had been working for BHP for 10 years.
“We don’t know whether this means some of the planned expansions are not going ahead, or if they are mining to a lesser extent,” said Steve Pierce, of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union.
The news came as rival Rio Tinto announced the temporary closure of an iron ore smelter in Western Australia, citing depressed pig iron prices and poor market outlook.
Pig iron prices are down to a quarter of their value a year ago at US$230 a tonne compared with US$900 a tonne.
A skeleton staff of 40 will be kept on to maintain the Kwinana plant, established in 2006 as a joint venture between Rio, China’s Shougang, Japan’s Mitsubishi and Nucor Corporation of the US.
Most of the remaining 100 workers will be offered redundancies or relocated to other Rio projects, the company said.
“This is a tough decision, but unfortunately one that relates directly to the current market conditions and the uncertainty of a market recovery in the near term,” Sam Walsh, chief of Rio’s iron ore operations, said in a statement.
Rio has already said it would axe 14,000 jobs.
At the close of share trading in Sydney BHP shares were up 1.56 percent at 33.78, while Rio was 1.43 percent firmer at 54.70.
Debt-laden Australian mining companies have attracted the attention of China’s state-owned metals sector, with takeover proposals from Beijing’s Minmetals and Chinalco for OZ Minerals and Rio Tinto respectively being considered by Australia’s foreign investments review board.
Hunan Valin Iron and Steel Group last month took a 16.5 percent stake in Australia’s Fortescue Metals.
INCURSION: After 13 PLA aircraft flew into Taiwan’s ADIZ, the US Department of State said that China should rather ‘engage in meaningful dialogue’ with Taiwan US President Joe Biden’s administration on Saturday urged China to stop placing military pressure on Taiwan, while calling on both sides of the Taiwan Strait to engage in peaceful dialogue. The statement by the US Department of State was issued after 13 Chinese military aircraft flew into Taiwan’s southwest air defense identification zone (ADIZ) on Saturday, the highest number observed in a single day this year, the Ministry of National Defense said. The air force scrambled fighter jets to monitor the Chinese aircraft, issuing radio warnings and mobilizing air defense assets until the planes left the ADIZ. The US “notes
‘INCREASED VIGILANCE’: A source of infection has not yet been found for the latest two cases in a hospital cluster, which should serve as a warning, Chen Shih-chung said A total of 2,991 people associated with a COVID-19 cluster infection at Taoyuan General Hospital have been put under home isolation, after an emergency expanded isolation order was issued on Sunday evening, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday. Fifteen people have so far tested positive in the cluster infection. The first case in the cluster (case No. 838) was reported on Jan. 12 — a doctor who treated an infected patient who had returned from the US. Contact tracing for the first 13 cases found connections to case No. 838, said Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who
FAMILY UNIT: The CECC warned that the eldest sister of the latest case, who also has COVID-19, visited Taoyuan’s Chungping evening market on Tuesday and Wednesday The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday reported a domestic case of COVID-19, associated with a recent cluster infection at Taoyuan General Hospital, and two imported cases. Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center, said that the latest case (No. 885) is a woman in her 50s, who is the third daughter of case No. 881, a man in his 90s. The woman is the main caregiver of her elderly father, who had been hospitalized earlier this month and was treated by a nurse (case No. 852) from Monday to Thursday last week, he said, adding that
DUBIOUS HONOR? A man in his 90s, who tested positive yesterday and is part of the Taoyuan hospital cluster, is the oldest person in Taiwan to have contracted COVID-19 Taiwan yesterday recorded six new imported cases of COVID-19 and two new domestic cases, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said, adding that the local infections are linked to the cluster at Taoyuan General Hospital, which now totals 12 cases. One of the domestic cases is a man in his 90s, who was treated earlier this month at Taoyuan General Hospital and tested negative for COVID-19 on Monday last week, four days before he was discharged, the center said in a statement. After one of the nurses on the ward was confirmed on Saturday last week to have contracted COVID-19, the
RSS