{"id":803092,"date":"2026-07-16T03:07:17","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T03:07:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/803092\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T03:07:17","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T03:07:17","slug":"liberty-bell-bay-manganese-smelter-to-close-immediately-after-sale-falls-through","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/803092\/","title":{"rendered":"Liberty Bell Bay manganese smelter to close immediately after sale falls through"},"content":{"rendered":"

The administrators of Australia’s last manganese smelter say they have ordered the immediate closure of the business.<\/p>\n

The Liberty Bell Bay smelter in northern Tasmania was placed into administration in March this year, but in May, administrators announced it had entered into an agreement with a consortium to acquire the business.<\/p>\n

One of its main financial backers pulled out last month, leaving the sale in doubt.<\/p>\n

It ultimately fell through this week.<\/p>\n

In a statement on Thursday morning, its administrators EY Parthenon said the consortium informed them on Tuesday that they had ceased pursuing the sale transaction.<\/p>\n

“In the absence of both a commercially viable transaction, and the funding required to continue operations, the Administrators have made the difficult decision to commence the orderly closure of the business with immediate effect,” it said.<\/p>\n

“These difficulties were, in part, driven by the broader economic challenges associated with operating the smelter in a volatile global economy.”<\/p>\n

EY said the employees were informed on Thursday morning, and would be updated about redundancies next week.<\/p>\n

“Employees are being provided with all support available during this difficult period,” the statement said.<\/p>\n

“In the short term, the Company will retain a small workforce to safely demobilise the site, realise the sale of remaining assets and meet its environmental and regulatory obligations.”<\/p>\n

A ‘sad day’ for local communities<\/p>\n

The Tasmanian and federal governments described it as a “sad day” for the northern Tasmanian communities that rely on the jobs at the smelter.<\/p>\n

In a joint statement, Premier Jeremy Rockliff and federal Industry Minister Tim Ayres said their focus was on the workers.<\/p>\n

\"men<\/p>\n

The smelter employs about 200 workers in northern Tasmania. (ABC News: Kelsey Reid)<\/p>\n

“This is deeply difficult news for the workers of Liberty Bell Bay and the communities of Bell Bay, George Town and northern Tasmania who have fought tirelessly for a better outcome,” the statement said.<\/p>\n

“Both the Commonwealth and Tasmanian governments are now focused on ensuring workers and their families are supported during this time, with immediate on-ground support now available.”<\/p>\n

Australian Workers Union Tasmania branch secretary Robert Flanagan said the closure was a blow for the workforce of 217.<\/p>\n

“The workforce had thought the discussions were moving ahead fairly well with the purchaser, so today’s announcement was something which was entirely unexpected,” he said.<\/p>\n

“So it is a big shock and the workforce at large is just trying to absorb that news.<\/p>\n

“To be so close and have it fall over is really hard.”\"An<\/p>\n

Robert Flanagan says the closure announcement was “entirely unexpected”. (ABC News: Emily Smith)<\/p>\n

Mr Flanagan anticipated workers would have their contracts terminated at a meeting on Monday, and would be paid until then.<\/p>\n

After that, he said they would have to pursue any accrued leave from the federal government’s Fair Entitlement Guarantee Scheme, which could take eight-to-12 weeks.<\/p>\n

The union is calling on the state and federal governments to have urgent discussions with the administrator to find out if there are any options to keep a sale on the table.<\/p>\n

“This business has a huge impact on the Northern Tasmanian economy \u2026 so it’s not the sort of industry that as a community we can afford to lose,” Mr Flanagan said.<\/p>\n

Embattled smelter faced months of uncertainty<\/p>\n

It’s been a long period of uncertainty for workers at the smelter.<\/p>\n

Its previous owner, GFG Alliance, placed it in limited operations in May last year, blaming a lack of ore supply.<\/p>\n

\"steel<\/p>\n

Liberty Bell Bay is Australia’s only manganese smelter. (ABC News: Kelsey Reid)<\/p>\n

The Tasmanian government provided the company with a $20 million loan to purchase ore, which was delivered in October but not used.<\/p>\n

As GFG’s financial issues worsened, Liberty Bell Bay was placed into voluntary administration in March.<\/p>\n

State and federal governments contributed $9.6 million to ensure workers continued to be paid while EY Parthenon searched for a buyer.<\/p>\n

EY announced a preferred bidder in May, which included Perth-based Adroit Capital and US private equity firm White Oak.<\/p>\n

Adroit pulled out last month, putting the sale in serious doubt, and it has now fallen through.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The administrators of Australia’s last manganese smelter say they have ordered the immediate closure of the business. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":203997,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,63,162276,99,121059,31113,121062,2801],"class_list":["post-803092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-bell-bay","tag-business","tag-liberty","tag-manganese","tag-smelter","tag-tasmania"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=803092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803092\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/203997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=803092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=803092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=803092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}