big year ahead, page-12

"Remember that reource they have has proven un economic in the past thats why xstra flicked it at a huge loss."

Get your facts right choco b4 you make uninformed statements like that. The closing down of Windimurra was a very selfish move by Xstrata which cost the loss of many jobs and a wast of funding by the state government. It was a strategy which was never going to win any support. Nothing wrong with the vanadium grades but that's not to say that Atlantic will not consider doing a deal with Yellow Rock at a later stage.

From the SMH archives:

Senator flays Xstrata as a carnivorous predator

3 December 2004

"Swiss miner Xstrata is facing a growing political storm over its $7.4 billion bid for WMC Resources, with controversial WA Senator Ross Lightfoot attacking the company as a "carnivorous global predator" that would benefit no one but its shareholders.

Mr Lightfoot, who worked for WMC in Kalgoorlie briefly in the 1960s, told the Senate yesterday that Xstrata's recent "audacious" closure and break-up of the Windimurra vanadium mine near Mt Magnet was an act of "commercial banditry" that did not augur well for WMC workers.

"One thing that we can be sure of in the proposed takeover ... by Xstrata is that, like all Swiss deals, there is no social payment, no beneficiaries in the medium [term] except the Swiss companies involved," he said.

"They would tear all the guts out of the deer just to get the kidney fat."

He cited the May closure and break-up of Windimurra, built with "$30 million of start-up money" from the WA Government, as an example of "the shady global practices that Xstrata is prepared to stoop to".

Windimurra's closure not only led to big job losses in WA but also boosted global vanadium prices, making Xstrata's South African vanadium business significantly more profitable, he said.

"This is singularly the worst act of a foreign company, mining or otherwise, that I have witnessed in Australia," the senator said. He revealed he indirectly owned options in Xstrata's estranged partner at Windimurra, Precious Metals Australia.

Last month a state parliamentary inquiry was highly critical of Xstrata's actions at Windimurra.

WMC is believed to be nervous that a political campaign may frighten Xstrata off before it either increases its $6.35 a share bid or a white knight emerges.

WMC chief executive Andrew Michelmore is understood to be planning a visit to Canberra next week to brief the Government.

Despite continuing rumours that Rio Tinto was preparing to mount a bid after WMC releases its target statement in about a month's time, WMC shares fell for a third day, down 6c to $7.14."

link: http://www.smh.com.au/news/Business/Senator-flays-Xstrata-as-a-carnivorous-predator/2004/12/02/1101923271718.html