Thursday, May 15, 2014

Metgasco licence to explore suspended and complaint lodged with Icac | Environment | theguardian.com

Metgasco licence to explore suspended and complaint lodged with Icac | Environment | theguardian.com

Metgasco, the company behind a controversial plan to drill for gas near Lismore, has had its exploration licence suspended and a complaint lodged with the New South Wales Independent Commission Against Corruption (Icac).

Anthony Roberts, NSW minister for resources and energy, said the exploration licence was suspended because Metgasco had not had a “genuine and effective consultation” with the local community. (Buru Energy take note)
The decision could head off an anticipated showdown between police and protesters at the Bentley site, near Lismore on the NSW north coast.
Anti-gas protesters, who have set up camp at the drill site for the past month, have said they expect a massive police operation, involving 700 officers, to descend upon the camp on Monday. It’s understood the operation has now been stood down.
Roberts said the Office of Coal Seam Gas (OCSG) was conducting an audit of all petroleum exploration licences, triggering concerns over Metgasco’s operation.
Separately, Roberts said he had written to the commissioner of Icac “following receipt of information concerning shareholdings and interests in Metgasco Limited”.
“I have been advised by OCSG that fundamental concerns have been expressed by members of the affected community about the way in which Metgasco has characterised its activities.

15 comments:

  1. Awesome ! i really found very informative article here and bookmarked this blog. Thank you.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Metgasco Gets Notice to Suspend Drilling at Rosella E-01 Well in NSW




    by Metgasco Ltd.

    |
    Press Release
    |
    Thursday, May 15, 2014

    Metgasco Limited, an Australian oil and gas exploration company, revealed Thursday the following:

    Metgasco has received advice from the NSW Office of Coal Seam Gas that it must suspend all work on the Rosella E-01 exploration well in New South Wales (NSW), Australia until the Company can demonstrate to the satisfaction of the Office of Coal Seam Gas that Metgasco has complied with condition 8 of the PEL 16 exploration license regarding community consultation.

    Metgasco is confident that it is in compliance with the PEL 16 licence conditions and is seeking to demonstrate this to government.

    The Company is in the process of mobilizing a drilling rig to drill the Rosella well and therefore this advice from the NSW government comes at a very critical time. Accordingly, the Company has sought and obtained a 48 hour ASX trading halt pending the opportunity to meet and discuss the matter with government so that there is a clearer understanding of the outlook for rig mobilization.

    Metgasco will advise the market as soon as the situation becomes clear.

    ReplyDelete
  3. NEWS FROM THE US FRACKING SCENE

    .


    smells like cinnamon

    Ron Burgundy is struggling with incontinence — the oil well, I mean

    By Holly Richmond

    Can an oil well drink scotch? If so, it’d be the Ron Burgundy 3-23-14H oil well outside Tioga, N.D. But unfortunately, Burgundy’s metaphorical trousers are all wet: The well was leaking fracking fluid, oil, and gas earlier this week after its wellhead malfunctioned.

    We don’t know much; Emerald Oil will only say “an undetermined amount of water and oil was released.” That’s because Ron Burgundy is under a confidentiality agreement — probably to keep the well from spouting sexist jabs and incorrect trivia like “San Diego in German means ‘a whale’s vagina.’” If you wanna go deep down the anthropomorphic route, the oil well’s leak might’ve just been tears over losing trusty pup Baxter.


    I don’t know how to put this, but oil leaks are kind of a big deal. And they’re all over the place. As Climate Progress points out:




    The news of North Dakota’s oil leak comes just a day after the AP reported that thousands of high-priority fracking wells had gone uninspected by the Bureau of Land Management in recent years. It also comes in the midst of a crude oil boom in North Dakota that’s already led to many spills — some high-profile and some completely unknown. In February, a fracking well blowout spilled several thousand gallons of fracking fluid and oil, and last year, a report found that almost 300 oil spills went unreported in North Dakota in the previous two years.

    You stay classy, America!



    Source



    A Confidential Fracking Well Named Ron Burgundy Is Leaking In North Dakota, Climate Progress


    Holly Richmond (hollyrichmond.com) writes and edits things for fun and money. Please follow her on Twitter because that is the entire basis of her self-esteem.

    ReplyDelete
  4. http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/05/13/3437460/ron-burgundy-confidential-well-leak/


    A Confidential Fracking Well Named Ron Burgundy Is Leaking In North Dakota


    By Katie Valentine May 13, 2014

    An oil well near Tioga, ND hasn’t stopped leaking oil since local emergency officials were notified of the spill on Friday. But because the well is under a confidentiality agreement that makes some of the well’s information a secret, details such as the spill’s aren’t being released to the public.

    The well, which is named Ron Burgundy (yes, really — specifically, Ron Burgundy 3-23-14H, as it’s one of three Ron Burgundy wells owned by the same company) is owned by Denver-based Emerald Oil. The spill has been contained with berms and, as the AP reports, trucks are bringing the excess spilled liquid to disposal sites.

    Alison Ritter, spokesperson for the North Dakota Department of Mineral Resources, told ThinkProgress that because of the well’s confidentiality, only a few things about the well could be released to the public: the well’s operator, name, file and identification number, location (in coordinates), and the date that the company’s confidentiality agreement lifts. In Ron Burgundy’s case, it’s August 4, 2014. On that date, Ritter said, information about the size of the spill can be released to the public.

    But Ritter said in certain cases, that confidentiality agreement doesn’t prevent important information from being released to the public. If a spill ever was deemed by the Department of Mineral Resources to be a health or safety threat — something Ritter said was considered on a “case by case basis” — the department would notify the state Department of Health and Department of Emergency Services, as well as emergency services in the county where the spill occurred.

    “It’s important to point out that just because a well is in a confidentiality status, it doesn’t mean the public would not be informed in an emergency,” Ritter said. “Should an incident progress to where health or human safety were at risk, we do have authority to notify emergency agencies to protect the public.”

    In the case of the Ron Burgundy well, emergency services were notified because, as Ritter said, due to “the nature of the incident, the risk was there” for the spill to constitute a health risk. So far, however, the spill doesn’t pose a risk to health or safety.

    Ritter said confidential wells are common in North Dakota — 18 percent of the state’s oil and gas wells are confidential, and her agency publishes a list of them on its website. She said most well operators in the state apply for confidentiality status for their wells at the time of permitting to protect information on production and other “proprietary” data.

    Jack Ekstrom, Whiting Petroleum’s vice president of government affairs, explained the desire for well owners to seek confidentiality status to the blog “the Barrel” in 2012:

    “If you have a significant completion, and there is acreage available, you don’t want that particular completion to be made public until you have leased as much acreage as you possibly can around it,” he said.

    He also had a simpler reason, though — “because we can.” In North Dakota, as the Barrel article points out (and Ritter confirmed), all requests for confidentiality are approved without any requirements for well operators to justify why they should be granted confidentiality.

    .

    The news of North Dakota’s oil leak comes just a day after the AP reported that thousands of high-priority fracking wells had gone uninspected by the Bureau of Land Management in recent years. It also comes in the midst of a crude oil boom in North Dakota that’s already led to many spills — some high-profile and some completely unknown. In February, a fracking well blowout spilled several thousand gallons of fracking fluid and oil, and last year, a report found that almost 300 oil spills went unreported in North Dakota in the previous two years.

    ReplyDelete
  5. http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/05/12/3436764/gao-fracking-wells-report/


    Regulators Failed To Inspect Thousands Of High-Priority Fracking Wells, Report Finds


    By Katie Valentine on May 12, 2014

    A federal report obtained by the Associated Press says the U.S. government hasn’t adequately inspected thousands of possibly high-risk oil and gas wells for water and environmental damage.

    The report, authored by the Government Accountability Office, has yet to be published, but according to the AP has found “substantial gaps in oversight” by the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management in overseeing oil and gas wells, a troubling finding that comes during a time when fracking is booming in some parts of the United States. According to the report, the BLM didn’t inspect more than 2,100 of the 3,702 wells that it had specified as “high priority” — meaning the well operators need to do more to prevent water or environmental contamination — drilled from 2009 through 2012.

    The AP states that the BLM used outdated science to produce its oil and gas well policies, and that it hasn’t reviewed or updated a number of its rules in light of new oil and gas technology — something that’s required by a 2011 executive order. The report found that the the BLM “cannot accurately and efficiently identify whether federal and Indian resources are properly protected or that federal and Indian resources are at risk of being extracted without agency approval.”

    The AP states that the reason behind many of these failures to inspect oil and gas wells is a result of a too-small budget and staff, and that the BLM will update some of its policies later this year. In 2013, when the federal sequester went into effect, the BLM enacted a hiring freeze and offered “Voluntary Separation Incentive Payments and Voluntary Early Retirement Authority” to several employees.

    Emily Wurth, Program Director for Food and Water Watch, said in a statement to ThinkProgress that the report’s findings were “highly concerning.”

    “This is yet another reminder that the oil and gas industry is expanding too quickly, and that cash-strapped state and federal government entities aren’t able to keep up,” she said. “When fracking cannot be safely regulated, we all pay the price in the form of accidents, leaks, spills, and air and water contamination.”

    The AP’s reporting of the GAO study comes less than a week after two Cornell researchers said that the Environmental Protection Agency has drastically underestimated the potency of methane emissions and, in doing so, has underestimated the effect fracking has on climate change. The researchers — Professors Robert Howarth and Anthony Ingraffea — said that even regulations that would help curb methane leaks from oil and gas wells wouldn’t be enough.

    “Enacting regulations that encourage the industry to spend more money fixing leaks and stopping venting is too late,” Ingraffea said.

    A study from April confirms the researchers’ statements on methane. It found that emissions from natural gas wells in Pennsylvania were 100 to 1,000 times greater than federal estimates. On average, drilling at seven wells in Pennsylvania emitted an average of 34 grams of methane per second, a far cry from the EPA estimates of 0.04 grams to 0.30 grams of methane per second. This month, a study from the University of Colorado Boulder yielded similar results, finding oil and gas operations from the Front Range in Colorado emitted almost three times as much methane than previously estimated.

    In February, Colorado became the first state to approve regulations that will seek to limit emissions from fracking sites by installing leak-minimizing equipment and regularly inspecting wells for leaks. Dan Grossman, the Environmental Defense Fund’s Rocky Mountain regional director told the Hill that Colorado’s regulations serve as “a model for the country.”

    ReplyDelete
  6. Why were they orphaned in the first place ?

    .


    Governor Mead pleased that work will start on orphaned well plugging

    (Cheyenne, Wyo.) – Governor Matt Mead complimented the Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission for taking the next step in its aggressive four-year plan to plug orphaned coal bed methane wells. The OGCC has selected a contractor to conduct reclamation work on 141 wells in the Ucross and Spotted Horse areas in Sheridan and Campbell Counties.

    “In our effort to be the standard-bearer for responsible energy development, Wyoming is committed to protecting and restoring our natural resources for the benefit of our citizens,” Governor Mead said. “Protecting our land, water and wildlife is as important as responsible oil and gas development. In Wyoming we are committed to both. I am pleased the Oil and Gas Commission is moving forward with this project.”

    The work will be conducted by Pluggin Along LLC of Gillette. The project’s funding comes via revenues from the conservation tax, which is assessed on oil and gas production. The contract specifically covers wellbore plugging. Landowners will have input into surface restoration.

    –Provided by Gov. Matt Mead’s Office

    ReplyDelete
  7. The following is a recent post on a popular share trading forum on the Buru thread. It gives an interesting insight into the attitudes of people who invest in gas fracking companies like Buru. It recieved a host of thumbs up from other Buru share holders. Apologies if anyone is offended by the language.


    "I have however taken an opposing view to yours.
    Like yourself using CFD's and Margin loans I have gone long at these levels.

    My first reason is that despite having troubles with the Abo's and a bad result with Ungani3, BRU still have assets that are extremely valuable and have the attention of majors such as Woodside.

    Majors like big resources, resources that can provide long term revenue growth. Not resources where the potential is limited to 1mb of oil or 1/2 Tcf of gas. As we are all aware BRU hold massive acreage across the Canning which holds massive gas and oil reserves. The majors want in on the Canning.

    At some point the Abo's will stop being greedy so and so's and will come to an agreement with the T/O garbage. After all its cash in their pockets for doing stuff all.

    So knowing fundamentally BRU has assets that are wanted I look at the charts.

    ReplyDelete
  8. JUST ON ABC KIMBERLEY NEWS AT 1120

    3 INDEPENDENT DELEGATES have been appointed by the WA EPA to do a Environmental Impact Assessment of James Price Point for use as a Common User Hub.

    The chairman of the assessors is Jarrad Ealy.

    This is a strategic assessment and they have been given no deadline to complete the assessment.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Browse gas fields: Rocky outcrops could change WA's share of offshore fields

    By Graeme Powell and Sue Lannin

    Updated May 16, 2014 11:54:02

    The discovery of three rocks off the Kimberley coast means Western Australia's share of Woodside's Browse gas field could jump from 5 to 65 per cent.

    The rocky outcrops discovered by Geoscience Australia are part of the North Scott Reef and are technically islands, which will prompt a redrawing of Western Australia's maritime boundaries.

    The discovery, which could result in more royalties and a greater say in how the gas is processed, has been welcomed by the State Government.

    Mines Minister Bill Marmion said the find could give the state a greater say in several gas fields now deemed to be in Commonwealth waters.

    "It's a very exciting development and potentially a great windfall for the state," he said.

    "We believe it's significant and we are now working closely with the Federal Government to determine WA's share of the Browse field and it's exact implications.

    "The fact that all of a sudden more of the field is in Western Australia's waters, all that gas from West Australian-owned land comes to Western Australia."



    The proposed boundaries could affect up to seven of the 13 gas fields in the area.

    The Browse LNG project is potentially bigger than the North West Shelf - Australia's largest oil and gas development.

    Mr Marmion said, however, he doubts the discovery will prompt the State Government to renew a push to have Woodside process the gas onshore at James Price Point in the Kimberley.

    "The Premier has actually said that for this particular project floating LNG is probably already organised," he said.

    "What it may mean though is that there's a stronger case for a supply base in Western Australia."

    For years, Premier Colin Barnett pushed for the gas to be processed onshore north of Broome.

    But Woodside abandoned that option last year as not viable, saying it could cost up to $80 billion, and it favours floating liquefied natural gas technology (FLNG).

    Variation which allowed FLNG defended

    Meanwhile, former federal resources minister Gary Gray has defended his decision to allow Woodside Petroleum to change its plans for the development of the Browse Basin gas fields off the WA coast.




    A WA parliamentary committee yesterday criticised last year's decision by the Federal Government which saw Mr Gray approve a variation of offshore leases, allowing Woodside to choose the technology it wanted to use to develop Browse.

    The committee found the use of FLNG as an alternative to onshore processing "would negatively impact upon WA industry".

    Committee members criticised Mr Gray and said his variation of the retention leases cost thousands of WA jobs.

    They also accused oil and gas companies of not acting in the interests of WA.

    The committee wants the approval process to be investigated.

    Mr Gray said he made the decision in the interests of the state and the country.

    "Many people in Western Australia wanted one of the largest industrial facilities on the Kimberley coast," he said.

    "The investors determined that was uneconomic.

    "And so as the federal minister I was placed in the position of making sure Western Australia, the Kimberley coast and Australia received the best possible benefit from this resource."

    Woodside Petroleum said it recognised the committee's report and was reviewing the various recommendations.

    The Maritime Union has backed the report's findings, including that offshore gas processing technology will cost the state thousands of jobs.

    The inquiry found that using FLNG technology to process offshore gas fields will create fewer jobs than onshore gas processing plants.

    The committee said it wanted the WA Government to get legal advice on whether the federal approval was lawful.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Australia’s great fraccing contender
    Friday, 16 May 2014
    Blair Price

    AUSTRALIA’s first home-grown fracture stimulation company will start a two-year contract for Beach Energy in July. Condor Energy managing director Christian Lange shares his views on the opportunity and the Cooper Basin’s unconventional potential.

    ..........



    Condor Energy Head Office

    Level 4, 15 Ogilvie Road, Mt Pleasant,
    Western Australia 6153.
    Telephone: +61 8 9315 5986
    Facsimile: +61 8 9364 8569
    Email: info@CondorEnergy.com.au

    Postal Address

    PO Box 107 Applecross
    Perth, Western Australia 6953

    ReplyDelete
  11. At least 21 dead in Vietnam anti-China protests over oil rig

    Riots spread from south the central part of Vietnam as crowds set fire to industrial parks, sparked by rig in disputed territory

    At least 21 people were killed and nearly 100 injured in Vietnam on Thursday during violent protests against China in one of the deadliest confrontations between the two neighbours since 1979.

    Crowds set fire to industrial parks and factories, hunted down Chinese workers and attacked police during the riots, which have spread from the south to the central part of the country following the start of the protests on Tuesday.

    The violence has been sparked by the dispute concerning China stationing an oil rig in an area of the South China Sea claimed by Vietnam. The two nations have been fighting out a maritime battle over sovereignty and that battle has now seemingly come ashore.

    Early Thursday morning a 1,000-strong mob stormed a giant Taiwanese steel mill in Ha Tinh province, central Vietnam, where they set buildings ablaze and chased out Chinese employees, according to a Taiwanese diplomat, Huang Chih-peng. He said both the head of the provincial government, and his security chief, were at the mill at the time of the riots, but did not "order tough-enough action".

    Five Vietnamese workers, and 16 others described as Chinese, were killed during the rioting, a doctor at a hospital in Ha Tinh told Reuters. An additional 90 people were injured in the attack.

    "There were about 100 people sent to the hospital last night. Many were Chinese. More are being sent to the hospital this morning," the doctor said.



    ...........................




    US moves 200 marines to Sicily amid deteriorating situation in Libya .

    Thursday, 15 May 2014 11:15

    American Department of Defence said on Wednesday it had temporarily moved about 200 Marines to Sicily from their base in Spain, as a precaution due to concerns about turmoil in North Africa.

    This move came to bolster the US ability to respond to any crisis in that area, which has been swamped with instability since the ouster of Libyan President Muammar Al-Gaddafi.

    Last October, about 200 Marines were also repositioned to Naval Air Station Sigonella, in Sicily for several weeks after US special operations forces had captured a senior Al- Qaeda leader in Libya.

    Pentagon spokesman, Colonel Steve Warren said that the Marines were "unquestionably" focused on the protection of embassies. But he did not rule out the possibility that they could carry out other missions.

    "These are United States Marines capable of conducting any mission given to them. That said, the focus of this force is the protection of embassies and US personnel," Warren said.

    It is worth mentioning that the US Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed in November 2011, after popular angry protests broke out in wake of viewing a defamatory film about Prophet Muhammad on YouTube.

    A Christian Egyptian-American citizen produced the film, which was acted by American actors. This led to a wide wave of angry protests against the United States.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Cash for jails: Tony Abbott's budget for Indigenous Australia


    With its budget, the Abbott government has made clear what it means by Indigenous 'advancement': fewer services, and more funding for lockups

    The 12 year old Aboriginal boy was small for his age, but appeared even smaller as he sat in handcuffs, shadowed by two burly police officers in the north-western NSW town of Bourke. I was watching as a white magistrate, a fly-in worker who usually lives in the rich suburbs of Sydney, deliberated on whether to send him to detention.

    His offense? Police had caught him out on the streets late at night, in breach of his bail conditions, and had thrown him in the watchhouse in the early hours of the morning. The reason he was out on the streets? It was safer than being at home. The magistrate didn’t want to send him back to his family, but with no other option, he was leaning towards placing him on remand as he waited for a court date.

    It’s a common situation. About 80% of young people in custody on remand don't go on to receive a custodial sentence within 12 months – meaning a large proportion of Aboriginal youth are locked up simply because there is nowhere else for them to go. Many of them have been taken from their families at rates now higher than the days of the Stolen Generations.

    The distressing number of Aboriginal children in juvenile detention is a consequence of a complex mix of factors, like poverty, the harsh realities of the NSW bail act and, I would argue, the crippling apathy of state and federal governments.

    Sadly, in small towns like Bourke, the streets can be like a prison. Society builds virtual walls around you according to the circumstance of your race and geography. It’s hard to break out of these confines, and it becomes even harder if you come into contact with the justice system at an early age.

    Towns with large Aboriginal populations also have a large police presence. They are meant to protect the vulnerable, but over policing only adds to the worrying rates of Indigenous incarceration. How can you achieve equality when you are locking up Aboriginal population at rates that beggar belief? Since the end of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody, Indigenous incarceration rates have jumped in every state and territory: 90% in the NT, 53% in NSW, and 50% in Western Australia.

    On Tuesday night, the scared eyes of that small 12 year old boy in Bourke were chief on my mind as I read over the budget papers, wading through doublespeak like “rationalisation”, “savings”, “efficiencies” and the most offensive of them all: “advancement”.

    Aboriginal Australia anticipated a tidal wave of cuts, but seeing more than half a billion dollars ripped out from under a people who have been chronically underfunded for decades still sent shockwaves through our communities (although budget analysis shows Labor has historically been the biggest offender in underfunding Indigenous affairs if you look at total Indigenous expenditure as a percentage of total government expenditure).

    We already knew the Coalition were cutting $13.4m from Aboriginal legal aid. The cuts will undeniably affect frontline services across the country, where Aboriginal people already have trouble accessing appropriate legal aid. Any hit to already underfunded services drip down to children like that 12 year old boy in Bourke.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Cash for jails: Tony Abbott's budget for Indigenous Australia

    I saw nothing addressing these distressing rates in the number tables of the budget. I saw nothing to slow the torrents of Aboriginal hurt across the country. Instead I saw this: more than $54m pumped into boosting police infrastructure in remote communities. No funding re-directed into keeping blackfellas out of gaol, but more for those who will keep locking them up.

    Put simply, you don’t make communities safer by locking up their men, in many cases for the “victimless crime” of driving unregistered or unlicensed. You make them safer by investing in adequate health, housing, employment and education opportunities – measures which aren’t explained in these budget papers.

    That’s just the beginning. There was no indication in the budget papers of which programs and organisations will have their funding hit by the huge cuts to health. More than $160m will be pulled from Indigenous health funding, which is not surprising, given Abbott’s track record in this area. As health minister in the Howard government, he presided over a $460m Indigenous health shortfall over a time period when Peter Costello boasted of almost $100bn in budget surpluses.

    Abbott’s “new engagement” with Aboriginal people is just fluff. It’s paternalism in sheep’s clothing. If you are wondering why Aboriginal people scoff at his claims to become the prime minister for Indigenous affairs, you only have to look to 2006, when he called for a “new paternalism” to put an end to the “rhetoric of self-determination”. That assault against self-determination, against the rights of Aboriginal people to control their own lives and affairs, is in the background of any reading of these budget papers.

    In a media release, Scullion talks about the government investing “$4.8bn” to streamline more than 150 individual programmes and services into the so-called Indigenous advancement strategy, “with the sole objective of achieving real results in the government’s priority areas”. That’s just it: the government’s priority areas. Not priority areas determined by Aboriginal people themselves. The Abbott government has made it clear in this budget that it will define what "advancement" means to Aboriginal people.

    The decision to de-fund our only national elected Indigenous body – the national congress of Australia’s first people and replace it with the hand-picked Indigenous advisory council only adds to this narrative. The national congress isn’t Atsic, but to pull funding from our only nationally elected representative body is a disgrace.

    And if you believe Indigenous advisory council head Warren Mundine has any say over the government’s direction in Indigenous affairs, think again. It’s clear the real power lies with the Indigenous affairs minister Nigel Scullion; Mundine has already had to back down from clashes with the minister on issues like the legal aid cuts and his calls for a radical overhaul of the office of registrar of Indigenous corporations. He has also been unable to make a dent in the Coalition’s plan to repeal section 18c of the Racial Discrimination Act.

    Mundine remains the Australian newspaper’s chief rent-a-quote, but the wages of the Indigenous advisory council would be the best budget saving the Abbott government could make in Indigenous affairs. Of course, none of this matters to Aboriginal kids like that 12 year old boy from Bourke. Most likely he will not see the “savings” and “efficiencies” boasted by the Abbott government.

    ReplyDelete
  14. More bad news for coal mines

    .

    Integra lays off 500 coal miners near Singleton in NSW Hunter Valley, blames coal prices


    Integra has laid off 500 workers from the Glennies Creek underground and Camberwell open cut mines near Singleton in the NSW Hunter Valley, blaming coal prices.

    Employees were told that although operations would be shut down, facilities would be maintained.

    Integra, which is part of Brazilian mining giant Vale, has blamed poor coal prices for its decision.

    Peter Jordan of the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union says the news comes as a shock and will have a big economic impact.

    "We're talking all up about 500 jobs there, so that's going to have a massive impact on the Singleton and surrounding towns where most of those workers and their families live," he said.

    "I'd like to think that this is not going to happen but we're hearing that this might be an arrangement to shut down the mines temporarily and restart it under some operation."

    Vale had been planning to start a new long wall operation at the Glennies Creek mine, but the project is now uncertain.

    The company operates five mines in NSW and Queensland.

    The ABC is waiting for a response from its head office in Brisbane.

    ReplyDelete
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