New Caledonia fears the failure of Clive Palmer’s Queensland Nickel business

WHY nickel drama for Clive Palmer could spell bad news for 300 people in the French overseas territory of New Caledonia.

Question Time

THERE are fears about 300 New Caledonian workers could lose their jobs if Clive Palmer’s flailing Queensland Nickel company is shut down.

The French overseas territory relies heavily on its income from nickel ore exports, and Mr Palmer is one of their biggest customers.

The New Caledonian president has personally warned Mr Palmer that if his nickel empire collapsed it could spark civil unrest on the Pacific island, where a quarter of private sector employment related to nickel exports.

Mr Palmer’s Queensland Nickel business went into voluntary administration last month with debts of more than $100 million. It also sacked 237 workers from the Yabulu refinery.

Yann Mainguet, a journalist from New Caledonia’s only daily newspaper, Les Nouvelles Calédoniennes, said the territory has been involved with Queensland Nickel’s refinery near Townsville for 28 years.

“The extraction of Caledonian laterite for Australia generates a lot of activity on the east coast of New Caledonia,” Mainguet told the Townsville Bulletin.

“Rolling, loading ... almost 300 jobs depend on these contracts with the Yabulu plant.”

New Caledonia, about 1470km northeast of Brisbane, hosts about a quarter of the world’s known nickel deposits.

Mr Mainguet said if Queensland Nickel closed, New Caledonia would have to find new markets for its nickel laterite ore.

“The hypothesis has been the subject of debate in the territory, and the question of price per tonne has been posed,” he said.

“All options must be studied.

“New Caledonia exported around a million tonnes of laterite to Queensland Nickel last year. That is almost half the volume sent in the past.”

But the likelihood of a buyer for the embattled Yabulu refinery appears remote with the nickel sector in the midst of a huge global crisis and massive losses.

The nickel division of the French Eramet group this month recorded losses of $400 million in 2015 and the French Government has undertaken to support New Caledonia’s nickel plants in Noumea and Koniambo, the Townsville Bulletin reports.

Last week West Australian nickel miner and processor Western Areas reported a first-half $20 million loss and the giant Anglo American is understood to be looking to sell its $1 billion nickel ­division.