By PAUL MILLAR
UNCERTAINTY surrounding the sale of Shell’s Geelong refinery and the clouded future of Alcoa’s Point Henry plant is starting to bite.
Reports this week indicated that potential buyers of the ageing Norlane refinery were down to two but a union organiser said local contractors were already losing their jobs as employers became increasingly concerned about future projects.
A Shell spokesman said employees, unions and the community working together to attract a suitable buyer was the best chance of a sale.
“As we have previously discussed with all our employees, there are various phases of a sale process and at this point in time we cannot unfortunately communicate with our employees and the community,” he said.
But Matt McPhee, a local Australian Manufacturing Workers Union organiser, said that a failure to communicate was already costing jobs.
He said several workers at a Downer EDi Engineering plant in Norlane had been told insufficient work was available to keep them employed.
The plant worked on projects for the refinery, the smelter and Alcoa’s Anglesea power station, Mr McPhee said.
“It’s just the nature of the industry in Geelong at the moment.”
A Downer spokesman confirmed the company had made redundant nine of its 25 workers in Geelong.
Mr McPhee expected more pain, with firms struggling to keep staff because of uncertainty over future projects.
Shell’s new chief, Ben van Beurden recently made potential refinery buyers aware of a massive downgrade in company profits.
“Compared with the fourth quarter 2012, downstream earnings, excluding identified items, were mainly impacted by significantly weaker industry refining conditions, in particular in Asia Pacific and Europe,” the company said in a statement.
Mr McPhee was worried about the impact on local jobs if the 60-year-old refinery failed to sell and Point Henry’s smelter closes.
“I don’t think people fully understand what an impact this will have on Geelong.”
