WHILE residents at Nhulunbuy are fearing for their future after Chief Minister Adam Giles announced the Northern Territory government would retreated from an agreement to provide gas to help save Gove’s Rio Tinto alumina refinery, businesses in the Katherine region are worried about the economic loss the gas shenanigans will have on the region.
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Late last week Mr Giles said the NT Government would withdrew an offer to release 300 petajoules - or ten years’ - worth of gas to power the refinery - a move that has 1500 jobs and the livelihoods of thousands of people on the Gove peninsula at risk.
In February Rio Tinto said it would keep it’s loss-making Pacific Aluminium subsidiary at Gove up and running after the NT government said gas would be supplied from offshore fields in the Bonaparte Basin for the next ten years, via a new 600-kilometre pipeline from Katherine to Nhulunbuy.
But on Friday Mr Giles said a deal was never signed, and he proposed to supply 195 petajoules over a period of 15 years instead.
On Monday the federal opposition stepped in, offering to underwrite the financing of the pipeline if Pacific Aluminium commits to keeping its Gove refinery open for 20 years.
Minister for Mines and Energy, and Member for Katherine, Willem Westra van Holthe, said he hopes that Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and
Pacific Aluminium can finalise arrangements to ensure the future of a gas pipeline to Gove, as he believes the benefits for Katherine would be “huge”.
He said a due diligence process has raised some concerns about the original 300 petajoules request from Pacific Aluminium - concerns that centred around levels of risk and possible power price hikes in years to come.
“The Northern Territory Government has proposed a new plan to get gas to Gove that is offered as a win-win for both taxpayers and Pacific Aluminium,” Mr Westra van Holthe said.
> Read the full story in the print edition of the Katherine Times, July 31.
