Alcoa contradicts Joe Hockey on reasons for smelter shutdown.     :(    

Date
    February 19, 2014


Aluminium manufacturer Alcoa has contradicted federal government claims that the carbon tax led to the decision to shut the company's Point Henry smelter and two rolling mills in Geelong and western Sydney.   

Treasurer Joe Hockey and Mr Macfarlane both blamed the tax for the loss of nearly 1000 jobs.   

But in a statement a company spokeswoman confirmed ''the carbon tax was not a factor in the decision''.   :P 


Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane were due to fly to Melbourne on Wednesday to meet Victorian Premier Denis Napthine after the latest manufacturing job losses.

Mr Napthine has previously flagged a wish-list of infrastructure projects he wanted fast-tracked. The meeting was confirmed late on Tuesday after doubts that an initial standoff between the offices of the prime minister and the premier.

The federal government is finalising its review of manufacturing in Victoria and South Australia, prompted by Holden's decision in December to quit manufacturing.

Mr Hockey had said Alcoa's decision was ''disappointing'', but ''predictable'' and linked it to the carbon price introduced by Labor, which he said added to the high cost of production. He called on Labor to back the repeal of the tax.    

''The carbon tax adds to the cost of production. It does, no matter what people say. You cannot say the carbon tax helps with producing things in Australia,'' he said.

''At the end of the day, the carbon tax is a greater cost on business. It is a massive cost on aluminium smelters, obviously. A 50-year-old smelter with a carbon tax is never going to be cost-effective.''

Alcoa had been exempt from 94.5 per cent of its carbon tax liability for its smelting operations as a so-called emissions intensive trade-exposed industry.

The decision to shut the Point Henry plant came after the company placed the plant under strategic review in February 2012, ahead of the introduction of the carbon price on July 1, 2012.

Announcing the review in 2012, Alcoa's managing director, Alan Cransberg, said the carbon tax would increase pressure on the company's operations at Point Henry, but said the review had not been prompted by the tax.

The Point Henry operation was subsequently thrown a $40 million lifeline in June 2012 by the former federal Labor and Victorian governments, but the cash injection had not been enough to help keep the company operating.

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten called on the Abbott government to roll out an assistance package for Alcoa workers.

Mr Shorten, who has been calling on the federal government to unveil a plan for Australian jobs, said the closure was devastating news for workers in Yennora and particularly Geelong, which had already been hit hard by Ford's decision last year to quit making cars.

''It's clear that a global oversupply of aluminium, dramatically falling aluminium prices and a high Australian dollar made the continuation of these operations impossible,'' he said. 

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/alcoa-contradicts-joe-hockey-on-reasons-for-smelter-shutdown-20140218-32yir.html#ixzz2thoqam38

Saw Hockey on TV last night, frothing at the mouth, scowling, red of
face, shouting about how 'the carbon tax' and Labor was to blame.

He looked and sounded like exactly what he is.

A dangerous and ignorant fool.

Hockey claims unions and workers were responsible for Toyota ending car manufacturing. Toyota refutes this.
Hockey claims the carbon tax was responsible for Alcoa closing some plants. Alcoa refutes this.

Anyone else see a pattern here?

Kat wrote on Feb 19^th, 2014 at 6:33am:

Saw Hockey on TV last night, frothing at the mouth, scowling, shouting about how 'the carbon tax' was to blame. He looked and sounded like exactly what he is. A dangerous and ignorant fool.

Hockey, Pyne and Abbott will distort and spin and tell any lie that suites them.  For some reason I don't think people understand how devastating this is to their ability to participate in the so called democracy of this country.    

Kat wrote on Feb 19^th, 2014 at 6:33am:

Saw Hockey on TV last night, frothing at the mouth, scowling, shouting about how 'the carbon tax' was to blame. He looked and sounded like exactly what he is. A dangerous and ignorant fool.

Hockey, Pyne and Abbott will distort and spin and tell any lie that suites them.  For some reason I don't think people understand how devastating this is to their ability to participate in the so called democracy of this country.    

With the senior Liberals it is difficult to tell if they lack honesty, intelligence or both.

Sorry....  but Aluminium...


Quote:

MINING giant BHP Billiton is considering spending $US3 billion ($3.365 billion) on building an aluminium smelter in the once war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo to take advantage of cheap and green hydro-electric power in the country. Under a memorandum of understanding with the DRC Government, BHP will spend $US20 million on a feasibility study for the smelter and an associated expansion of the Inga hydro power station on the Congo River.     BHP could source alumina for the refinery from its $3 billion alumina and bauxite project in Guinea, and the move will stoke speculation that BHP is stalking its Canadian-based partner in the Guinea project, Global Alumina, which is valued at more than $US500 million.     The Congo project is the latest sign that miners are having to go into riskier geographies to find key assets - the key asset in this case being hydro power.     Aluminium is often referred to as "congealed electricity" because of the large amount of power needed to smelt alumina. Aluminium producers are scouring the world for sources of so-called stranded power that can guarantee low costs, and the inevitability of a price on carbon means green power is high on the list. Rio Tinto's $43 billion takeover of Canadian aluminium giant Alcan is largely driven by Alcan's large sources of hydro-electric power in Canada.     While aluminium producers including Rio increasingly see the Middle East as an attractive site for smelters, given the region's surplus natural gas reserves, BHP is believed to be wary of the area, given the potential for the gas to be exported as liquefied natural gas.

The Carbon Tax, and the other measures Labor has implemented which has caused the cost of electricity to rise...  has had an effect.  I heard somewhere that the smelter uses almost a 3rd of Victoria's power.  A bit far fetched but we do have these comments on it.


Quote:

The initial electricity supply to the smelter was a 220 kV transmission lines from the Geelong Terminal Station direct to the smelter. When production started, the maximum power demand of the smelter was 39.76 MW. By June 1964 it was 68.38 MW, and by October 1964 76.6 MW - more than the entire Geelong region's demand. November 1965 it was 78.88 MW, February 1967 79.84 MW, and 140 MW by 1969.[3] On 20 March 1969 Alcoa's own brown coal fired Anglesea Power Station was brought on line. Of 150 MW capacity, the power station is connected to the smelter by around 30 km of high voltage transmission lines, and is used to augment the supply from the Victorian electrical grid. The current power demand of the smelter is 360 MW for a 185,000 tonne annual production capacity, of which approximately 40 per cent is met by the Anglesea power station. The Point Henry smelter, along with the smelter at Portland, use 18 to 25 per cent of Victoria's electricity production. In March 2010 it was announced that the operators of Loy Yang B power station (Loy Yang Power) had signed a contract with the smelter operators for the supply of electricity to power aluminium smelters at Portland and Point Henry until 2036, the existing power contracts expire in 2014.

They lack honesty.

A few years ago, you could trust moderates like Turnbull and Hockey.

Now it seems they have totally discredited themselves. Its very disappointing.

Aluminium world prices are only a third of what they were a few years back. That alone is the reason for the closure.

I just wonder what the excuse will be if they do repeal the tax.

In the interest of their own skin you think they'd keep it.

Grendel wrote on Feb 19^th, 2014 at 9:46am:

Sorry....  but Aluminium...

what you think is irrelevant ... if the CEO says it wasn't a factor, then it wasn't a factor ... why do you struggle with that?

Dsmithy70 wrote on Feb 19^th, 2014 at 10:24am:

I just wonder what the excuse will be if they do repeal the tax. In the interest of their own skin you think they'd keep it.

I think there is a very good chance ... especially if the senate vote goes against Abbott in WA, he'll have a ready made excuse and he'll jump on it.

Alcoa was exempt from the carbon tax, ergo it was not the reason.

Maybe we should offer to set up a Westinghouse nuclear reactor for them—cheap power. But that isn’t the reason.

The world is basically in recession with even China slowing down. We are about to join the world by applying the discredited austerity measures and chasing away the car makers.