The big, ugly Australian Herald Sun Jill Singer January 29, 2009 “…………………
Last week BHP Billiton announced it will cull 6000 jobs worldwide, shedding more than half of those in Australia.
Its massive nickel mine in Ravensthorpe, Western Australia will shut down, along with 350 nickel refinery jobs at Yabulu in Townsville, Queensland.
Worse still, more job losses are feared, and all this because nickel prices have slumped over recent months.
The announcement heralds the death of towns such as Hopetoun, south east of Perth, that Australian taxpayers helped build and will now have to pay for again, as residents face ruin.
The WA Government is being forced to pump an immediate $5 million rescue package into helping support them.
It should be noted that, in one of the most cynical aspects of these closures, BHP pledged its participation would include an “Indigenous Participation Strategy” that would see its nickel project deliver “lasting” social change for indigenous locals……………………………….
BHP Billiton is Australia’s biggest company and the world’s largest miner.
It is also, in my view, behaving like a corporate thug — the Big Un-Australian.
Five months ago, Marius Kloppers assured analysts the company was well set for the future and was prepared to contend with all sorts of “headwinds and tailwinds” and still turn in great results.
Ah yes, Marius, but how?
Slashing and burning to keep shareholders happy is not the way a socially responsible company behaves. It is putting profits over people in a blatant, cruel and exploitative fashion.
During times of plenty we’ve seen BHP Billiton rake in enormous profits.
Last financial year it posted a record profit of $17.6 billion, up 15 per cent on the year before. It was the seventh straight year BHP posted record profits.
Now, with the global economic crisis, it is forecast to make profits of “only” $11-12 billion for this financial year.
Australians are being told not to panic about the economy, but why wouldn’t we when BHP Billiton acts as though the wolf is at the door just because profits decline for the first time in eight years?
Even if it had to make cuts, the way it has done so is appalling.
BHP’s website claims a commitment to making a “valuable contribution to its local communities”.
Pull the other one, you miners of greed.
Archive for January, 2009
The big, ugly Australian | Herald Sun
January 28, 2009BHP slows down its Olympic Dam expansion | The Australian
January 26, 2009BHP slows down its Olympic Dam expansion THE AUSTRALIAN Sarah-Jane Tasker | January 22, 2009
BHP Billiton has puts on hold plans to spend billions of dollars to create the world’s biggest open-pit mine.
It has scaled back its Olympic Dam expansion team, axing 200 jobs.
The Melbourne-based miner announced major global job losses and production cuts in its quarterly report yesterday and revealed that it would slow the expansion of its world-class Olympic Dam asset in outback South Australia.
BHP has consistently talked up the potential of the the copper-gold-uranium deposit during its failed $135 billion bid for rival Rio Tinto, but plunging commodity prices and weak market conditions have prompted it to scale back action to more than double Olympic Dam’s production capacity……………………………Fat Prophets analyst Gavin Wendt said he was not surprised by the Olympic Dam slowdown, given that the last large-scale project BHP had commissioned was the Ravensthorpe nickel mine in Western Australia, which the company revealed yesterday was being “indefinitely suspended”…………………………….He added that BHP had again failed to provide any clarity on the project, which was still “up in the air” with no detailed time frame.
“BHP has been very opaque with respect to the development timetable,” Mr Wendt said. “But it is not surprising because they have been cagey in regards to mine closures and cutbacks, whereas Rio Tinto have been the opposite and have been open and transparent.”
