Bell Bay woes raise alarm for heavy industry

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This was published 12 years ago

Bell Bay woes raise alarm for heavy industry

By Andrew Darby

AMBITIONS for Bell Bay to grow into a regional Australian industrial heartland are receding as heavy manufacturing braces for another hit there.

The northern Tasmanian port's longest-standing plant, the Alcan smelter, is the latest to face operational pressure, with Rio Tinto ripening its aluminium assets for divestment.

Beaconsfield goldmine.

Beaconsfield goldmine.Credit: Craig Abraham

The 550 workers at the first aluminium smelter in the southern hemisphere have been told of tough market conditions, potential potline suspensions, and possible closure.

''We are leaving no stone unturned as we try to make Bell Bay resilient in any market conditions,'' Bell Bay Aluminium general manager Ray Mostogl said yesterday.

Gunns' chip mill on the location of the proposed pulp mill.

Gunns' chip mill on the location of the proposed pulp mill.

The warning is the latest to jangle nerves in the Tamar estuary, where infrastructure support for manufacturing is diminishing, and Gunns' $2.3 billion pulp mill is unrealised.

Alongside Alcan, the BHP-Anglo American TEMCO manganese smelter is about to suspend operations, keeping permanent staff on while its future is reviewed over the next three months.

At the Beaconsfield gold mine, 150 jobs will go by the end of June when BCD Resources NL says the remaining viable ore will have been extracted. At the same time, direct sea freight and bulk shipping services that underpinned industrial competitiveness are disappearing, as are hopes for a port expansion.

Nearly a year ago, Bell Bay's weekly international service to Asia ended, and late last year Agility Shipping withdrew the port's sole container freight service to Melbourne.

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The service losses effectively adds $1000 to each international container passing through Melbourne, plus hundreds of dollars for road services to north-west coastal ports, said the Tasmanian Freight Logistics Council's chief executive, Rob McGuire. ''On top of the high dollar and other pressures on competition, the loss of something like a direct container service is the kind of thing that could push a company over the edge.''

Bulk freight from the port is also under a cloud. The state's sole native forest woodchip exporter, Artec, suspended deliveries to its Bell Bay chip mill at the beginning of February.

Plantation woodchip exports are still leaving the port from Gunns' mill. But the project that could soak up thousands of local jobs in the construction phase, the pulp mill, is still to realise a joint venture partner more than seven years after it was first announced.

The Tasmanian Chamber of Commerce and Industry said although Bell Bay's manufacturing pressures were faced by the rest of Australia, other states were able to rely on stronger mining or service sectors.

We are leaving no stone unturned as we try to make Bell Bay resilient.

''It so happens that a very large proportion of our manufacturing base is at Bell Bay,'' TCCI chief economist Mark Bowles said. ''It's sort of the perfect storm at the moment. Anything high volume and low value is not something for Tasmania to be involved in.''

A spokesman for Premier Lara Giddings said she and the Economic Development Minister, David O'Byrne, would meet the federal government soon to discuss options for the long-term viability of the manufacturing industry in ''challenging circumstances''.

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