Ann: December 2011 Quarterly Report of Activities, page-52

re: Ann: December 2011 Quarterly Report of Ac...
Another article! from the Advocate

"25 workers lose job at Fossey mine site

10 Feb, 2012 01:00 AM



TWENTY-five jobs have been shed at Bass Metals' Fossey mine site.

Mine company management informed the 20 mining and five exploration contractors on Tuesday morning of the bad news, being unable to say with any certainty if the positions would be restored.

Bass Metals managing director Mike Rosenstreich said yesterday the company "with a great deal of regret" had to "reconfigure our mine plan" in the interests of financial responsibility.


Without "scaling down" the workforce and "accelerating mining of part of the ore body" to increase cash flow there was a "potential impact on our longer term capacity to meet secured debt", Mr Rosenstreich said.


"I think they (workers) were certainly given a candid view that we are hoping to restore stage two (of operations) and should they be around, there might be an opportunity for them but I have to be very careful how we manage people's expectations," Mr Rosenstreich said.


"It is my hope that (re- employing the workers) is the case - we are going to focus on getting stage one plan completed."


In its recent quarterly report to the Australian Securities Exchange, Bass Metals said its board had "acted prudently and pro- actively in light of new technical data that may adversely impact the company's longer term cash flow projections".


"... projections indicate there is some uncertainty as to the company's capacity to meet its secured debt to its lender, RMB Australia Holdings Ltd (RMBAH), from the continuing mining and processing of the current Fossey ore reserves," the report noted.


"A decline in metal prices in Australian dollar terms has previously been reported by the company as contributing to a deteriorating financial outlook.


"Based on the previously experienced grade and metal recoveries this metal price reduction was assessed as being manageable."


The Hellyer Mine Project site employed between 130-140 workers.


Liberal mining spokesman Adam Brooks said "job losses are always disappointing, but what is truly frightening is the ambivalence and even outright opposition of the Labor-Green Government to the mining industry in Tasmania".