General News
26 February, 2025
City's future still dependent on mining, says Power
Nev Power, one of Mount Isa’s great success stories, says the city’s future is still heavily reliant on mining.
Strategic support for emerging technologies and enterprises should not come at the expense of efforts to innovate existing Mount Isa industry, former Fortescue Metals chief executive officer Nev Power has warned a gathering at the roadmap report launch.
The highly respected resource executive, who has maintained strong connections to the North West since growing up on a Duchess property, was a late addition to the speaker list on Friday and crossed the country from Perth to Mount Isa the previous evening.
Mr Power used his keynote address to deliver a few hard truths to the gathering that had been celebrating the potential of planned moves to capitalise on the apparent potential of the “decarbonised economy”.
He said Mount Isa was at a pivotal moment in its history, which required sober consideration of the fundamental strengths that had underpinned the local economy for the past century.
While welcoming the council’s initiative in spearheading discussion about a long-term vision for Mount Isa, Mr Power warned that emerging industries had yet to prove their economic viability.
He said there should be renewed focus on widening the capability of existing industry, singling out improving efficiencies in copper extraction and investigating long standing deficiencies along the Mount Isa to Townsville rail line.
“Mount Isa as we know it today exists because of one thing – the world class copper and silver-lead-zinc mining and processing operation that has underpinned our community for more than a century,” he told the gathering.
“The skills, innovation and technologies that have been developed here are recognised around the world.
“Whilst I applaud the innovative ideas around energy transition and critical minerals processing, many of these options will require significant investment for the next decade or two to develop processing infrastructure before they generate meaningful returns.”
Mr Power said Mount Isa “must do everything possible” to retain the existing operations that are based on proven technologies because they “offer greater certainty around returns and timeframes for investment”.
“So while attracting new industries is important, retaining our existing businesses and industries is arguably even more important,” he said.
“Retaining and expanding or extending the mineral processing and smelting operations at Mount Isa is essential if we are to sustain a community the size of Mount Isa.
“These operations are the lifeblood of our economy.
“To replicate the scale of these operations is a formidable task and the longer we can maintain the current level of cooperation and employment, the better.
“We know there is undoubtably much more copper here in Mount Isa and in the surrounding region – with the right investment this copper can be mined, processed and smeltered here.
“However, for this to happen, it much be done economically.
“It may be time for a thorough study to explore different approaches and new methods to extract the remaining copper in Mount Isa more efficiently and cost effectively to underpin the current processing infrastructure.
“The broader North West Minerals Province looks promising, with potential discoveries, however most of these appear to lack scale and development timeframes that would provide sufficient feed to maintain existing throughput.
“In addition, the uncompetitive cost of rail transport along the great northern line has seen the somewhat bewildering result where trucking is more economic than rail.
“Again, this needs serious review and investigation to avoid loading our highways with heavy vehicle transport while our railway slowly and inextricably declines and becomes more expensive due to the lost volume.
“Governments of all flavours are looking to subsidise so-called new industries, but in fact we are losing our trunk manufacturing and support infrastructure due to underinvestment in new technologies at a much faster rate than we are generating new enterprise.”
Mount Isa mayor Peta MacRae welcomed the input from Mr Power.
She said she believed there was scope for the city to strike a balance between expanding existing industry while supporting the development of emerging enterprise.
“I can’t see why we cannot have both,” she told North West Weekly.
“We need to have the policy settings from government in place that attract and retain workers as well as deliver cheaper power, water and logistics to attract investment.
“This will attract both new enterprise as well as support existing industry.
“The cost of rail at the moment is putting some industry on edge of viability and it is putting a lot of projects in doubt.
“We need government to use its levers to improve the existing supply chain and improve the opportunities for emerging business.”