Australian coke producer, Illawarra Coke Company, has requested that employees from its two cokeworks take indefinite leave from next week.
The company will suspend coke production from February 6 at its cokeworks at Coalcliff and Corrimal, New South Wales where 49 permanent workers and two contractors are employed.
Employees were called into a meeting on Thursday morning and told the news. The company said all were prepared to take leave.
District vice-president of the United Mine Workers Union, Graham White, said he was optimistic the stoppage would not be long term.
"We are not looking at redundancies," he said.
The company was losing money on its coking process but a major European customer - ArcelorMittal - recently defaulted on a large order.
The price per tonne price the company was receiving from Asian and European coke buyers had fallen below what it paid mining companies, including Illawarra Coal, for coking coal.
Managing director Rex Wright said both plants would be placed on care and maintenance at the end of production next week. Ongoing environmental requirements would be met.
He said the company was "guardedly optimistic" there would be no need for job losses or redundancies.
Directors had already met suppliers to try to renegotiate the price paid for coal, but until any deals were finalised, just how long coke production would cease was the "$64,000 question employees are asking".
"We have a stockpile of coal which we will use to keep the commitments to our customers," Mr Wright said.
Illawarra Coke Company is a major supplier of metallurgical and foundry coke to Australian and overseas base metals producers for lead and zinc smelting and iron production for steel making.
For the past five years it has exported three-quarters of its coke.
Metallurgical and foundry coke has been produced for nearly 100 years on the two sites it now owns.
Source: Illawarra Mercury
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