Antinuclear

South Australia just escaped a very poor deal of Olympic Dam as “China’s quarry”

SA government now wary of BHP: premier, Yahoo Finance, AAP – Wed, Aug 22, 2012   “…He [Premier Jay Weatherill ] said South Australia was now entitled to be wary when dealing with the company in future and warned the government would take a tougher approach to negotiations if asked to approve expansion a third time.

“We’ve been given to understand that BHP were proceeding with an expansion once. We’ve been given to believe that BHP will proceed with an expansion twice,” Mr Weatherill said. “If they come to us and seek permissions and approvals on a third
occasion, we will be taking a different approach to the negotiations….

the Greens said the delay was a “get-out-of-jail card” giving the government the chance to negotiate a much better deal.
“The 2011 deal was economically irresponsible, environmentally reckless and would have left South Australia as little more than China’s quarry,” Greens MP Mark Parnell said. “Despite giving the company nearly everything it wanted, it still
didn’t stack up economically.”…

[ Premier Jay Weatherill ] said it would be difficult to quantify
immediately the impact on the state budget and the state economy.
That could depend on the outcome of talks with the company to be held
soon to consider the existing indenture agreement for the mine, which
includes a condition that the expansion be approved by the end of this
year.
The premier said the state remained on track to meet its target of $20
billion in annual mining production by 2020, and other projects
already up and running or in the pipeline were not relying on Olympic
Dam as a “locomotive” to drag them along. ..
http://au.finance.yahoo.com/news/sa-government-now-wary-bhp-081910381.html

August 25, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, South Australia, uranium