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About 1000 jobs will go as one of Australia's biggest companies closes an iron ore hub in Western Australia's Goldfields.
ASX 50 company Mineral Resources today told the market its 13-year-old Yilgarn mining operation was "not financially viable" beyond the end of the year.
It cited the limited life remaining in the five mine sites served by the hub and the money and time it would take to ramp up more nearby operations.
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So the $12 billion company decided to scale down work at Yilgarn, about 350 kilometres north-west of Perth, making the last shipment by December 31.
The company said the roughly 1000 workers impacted would be prioritised for open positions and retraining.
"This prudent but difficult decision was not taken lightly and follows years of investment to extend the life of our operations in the Yilgarn," Chris Ellison said, in a statement to the ASX.
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"With our investment across Western Australia, we have almost 800 vacancies and will redeploy as many of our people as possible to other MinRes operations, including to our low-cost, long-life Onslow Iron project."
The company said it was pushing a low-cost, long-life approach to its mining strategy more generally.
Mineral Resources shares closed down 1.3 per cent at $60.57, down from a one-year high of $79.49 in May.
