any positives, page-20

Hi All,

This is a bit more informative than Intec's Forum. This is from The Age.

Zinc dive claims fourth Aussie victim

Rapidly weakening world zinc prices have claimed a fourth Australian mining casualty in three months with the closure of another mine costing 50 jobs, the mine's boss says.

Intec managing director and chief executive officer Philip Wood says the return on metals is at an all-time low in Australia.

Zinc and lead prices have collapsed as parts of the world enter recession and China boosts its own zinc production, he said.

Mr Wood said Monday's closure of the Hellyer Zinc Mine in Tasmania's north-west is further evidence of a patchy resources boom.

"If you are into bulk commodities like iron ore or coking coal, or the energy or gas sectors, then things are very buoyant," Mr Wood told AAP.

"But if you are in the metals sector then things are far less consistently buoyant, particularly metals like nickel and zinc. They have been very weak.

"The Australian dollar prices for these metals, relative to the mine site operating costs, are lowest in the history of mining in Australia.

"Intec's is the latest in a series of such announcements by Australian zinc miners.

"Sharply falling metals prices combined with significantly increased mine site costs have rendered their zinc production projects uneconomic.

"We have no choice but to suspend operations in order to preserve cash flow."

Mr Wood said the Lennard Shelf mine in Western Australia, the Endeavour and Perilya mines in NSW and the Australian ASX-listed AIM Resources's African operation had all been similarly affected.

"All of these closures have been announced within the last three months in response to the rapid weakening of the zinc price," he said.

Intec was about a quarter of the way through extracting zinc/lead concentrate from the tailings at its Hellyer mine.

Mr Wood said about 50 mine workers and sub-contractors would be out of work as the mine was put on a care and maintenance footing.

Cheers.