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All posted here for you to 'link'.
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National Times
200 jobs under threat, briquette maker warns David Wroe May 2, 2012
A LATROBE Valley company owned by brown-coal generator HRL has warned that the carbon tax will force it to close, with the loss of 200 jobs, unless the Gillard government injects enough compensation to keep the company alive.
With the government poised to release details of various taxpayer-funded assistance for industry, HRL subsidiary Industrial Energy announced yesterday it was reviewing its brown coal briquette manufacturing business, which directly or indirectly employs 200 people.
''With the introduction of the carbon tax … the future of Victoria's only brown coal briquette manufacturer is expected to be unsustainable under a business-as-usual scenario,'' general manager Tony Ferguson said. Advertisement: Story continues below
The announcement comes amid negotiations between the government and five coal-fired generators over the ''contract for closure'' program, under which the most carbon-intensive plants would be paid to close down by the end of the decade.
HRL has applied for funding for its Energy Brix station at Morwell, to which the briquette-making plant is attached.
Briquettes are made from brown coal, dried and compressed into blocks, which are then sold as fuel to fire up coal power stations or generate heat and steam in food processing and horticulture.
Industrial Energy sells briquettes to Loy Yang A and Hazelwood power stations, and exports them to China and Europe.
Luke van der Meulen, Victorian president of mining and energy for the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union, said it was possible HRL had announced the review to pressure the government during negotiations over a contract-for-closure deal.
He said HRL had told workers that its electricity and briquette plants would stop production immediately in July if it was not successful in the contract for closure program, under which the government has promised to pay to gradually shut down 2000 megawatts of brown coal generation. If it was successful, HRL had indicated it would manufacture briquettes until 2015 before shutting.
Mr van der Meulen called on the federal government not to leave Morwell workers in the lurch.
''HRL is telling us that if they are not getting a contract for closure, they will be shutting and if that happens there is not a single thing in place to help these workers and the Latrobe Valley,'' he said.
''Julia Gillard has said she is going help the valley but we haven't heard anything.''
Energy Minister Martin Ferguson said Energy Brix would get $27.7 million in cash this financial year and was eligible for $100 million in free carbon permits.
''The government will continue to work with HRL and its customers to help them manage their transition to a more sustainable energy supply,'' he said.
Opposition climate spokesman Greg Hunt described the job-loss threat as ''the human face of the carbon tax''.
Environment Victoria's Mark Wakeham said coal generators would be ''trying to extract every possible cent out of the federal government and will make all sorts of claims'' ahead of the contract-for-closure deadline on June 30.
(20min delay)