Townsville residents don’t have faith Clive Palmer will actually reopen his Queensland Nickel refinery

Just how much faith does Townsville have in Clive Palmer’s promises to reopen his Yabulu nickel refinery?

TOWNSVILLE  residents are doubtful mining magnate Clive Palmer will ever reopen his nickel refinery, according to a new survey.

About 65 per cent of the almost 800 respondents in the Townsville Bulletin’sannual State of the North survey said they did not believe Mr Palmer would reopen his Queensland Nickel refinery at Yabulu.

The lack of public confidence comes as Mr Palmer failed to meet his own estimated deadline of a “potential recommencement of production” by mid-December.

Mr Palmer first announced plans to reopen the refinery by processing nickel ore and tailings at the shuttered refinery in June.

On November 1 Mr Palmer said QNI Resources had received draft contracts from the Port of Townsville, which paved the way for production to recommence within “six weeks”.

“This is an encouraging development for QNI Resources and the people of North Queensland,” Mr Palmer said in November. “Once we gain access to the port we can begin receiving nickel ore and can immediately employ 100 people to recommission the refinery, as a forerunner to more than a thousand jobs in the near ­future.

“Once the leases are reinstated with the same terms and conditions as were in place previously, we can set about getting Townsville back to work again and making it great.”

Access to the port has remained a significant stumbling block to restarting the Yabulu refinery.

Both the port and berth lessee Glencore have long indicated they were prepared to negotiate access but there has been no public confirmation of any deal since the initial announcement about plans to reopen the refinery.

Mr Palmer did not respond to a request for comment on the survey result before deadline.

The former politician has been active in Townsville in the latter half of 2018, setting up an office for his United Australia Party and flagging his intention to run for election in the federal seat of Herbert at the next election.

During this time Mr Palmer has repeatedly pledged to reopen the refinery, which has been closed since March 2016 after it was placed into liquidation with debts of about $300 million.

Originally published as Townsville residents don’t have faith Clive Palmer will actually reopen his Queensland Nickel refinery