Copper: Humanity’s first and most important future metal
Millions of feet of copper wiring will be required for strengthening the world’s power grids, and hundreds of thousands of tonnes more are needed to build wind and solar farms.
Copper and gold focused Ivanhoe Australia (ASX:IVA) announced Tuesday it will cut 50 jobs from its Queensland operations to save around $10 million annually.
The company’s managing director Ines Scotland said the changes were necessary for the company to grow.
“These are difficult, but necessary first steps to improve the performance of the company and begin to create a sustainable platform for future growth,” she said in a statement.
The instability follows Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto’s (ASX, LSE & NYSE: RIO) take over of the parent company, Ivanhoe Mines, in April this year.
Ivanhoe was founded by the legendary mining entrepreneur Robert Friedland, who discovered the great Voisey Bay nickel deposit in Canada and quit in April, following the take-over.
The job cuts are the first phase of a two-point plan to help the company reduce costs.
A second phase of the review, which will reveal Rio’s final plans for the company, is expected to take up to another three months to complete, reports The Australian. The article adds that Ivanhoe may be pulling all underground mining and maintenance under one contractor, which could cut $25 million of capital costs and 5% of operating costs.
Ivanhoe said while it had not yet identified all the positions that would be affected it was looking to finalise the shakeup over the next two weeks.
The company said it expected to incur a one-off cost of $2 million for changes to its business, and with other modifications it expected total savings of around $20 million.
