Rio starts the process of refinery shutdown

Rio Tinto, the mining giant, will shut down its alumina refinery on Gove peninsula in Arnhem Land. This is a part of their five-month operation that will finally result in closure of the plant by August.

Last week the plant had distributed almost 90 redundancy notices. It has been scheduled that 350 of the present workforce comprising of 1500 would be redeployed and the consequences will be devastating for northeast Arnhem Land.

From today onwards, workers will embark on a 2 day operation and plan to stop one of the three parallel bauxite digestion trains of the plant. The other two will stop functioning on April 1 and June 1 respectively, with reductions in employment. It takes about 2 months for each train to place in care and maintenance mode.

Anthony Havers ,a company spokesman, , said the 1st stage of the shutdown will affect about 20% of the workforce followed by 30%in stage 2 and 50% in the final stage. It is expected the first redundant workers will officially leave their posts in the beginning of next month.

Rio estimates its expenses on goods, wages and services will decrease from $460 million (approx) to $170m (approx) annually, stripping about $300m from the economy. With these changes in place, there would be reductions in services as well as business activity, relied upon by Nhulunbuy and their surrounding Aboriginal communities.

As promised by Mr.Havers, Rio would start releasing details of the support packages this month. He said they would brief GCAC at a meeting tomorrow, which is described as "D-day" for the community.