{"id":654437,"date":"2026-05-07T20:21:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T20:21:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/654437\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T20:21:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T20:21:09","slug":"they-will-have-electricity-energy-minister-responds-to-concerns-about-cuts-to-operations-at-ioc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/654437\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018They Will Have Electricity\u2019 Energy Minister Responds to Concerns about Cuts to Operations at IOC"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Government has confirmed that cuts are coming to operations at IOC in Labrador West.<\/p>\n<p>According to AllNewfoundlandLabrador the economic driver will be decommissioning an electric drill pilot program, and cancelling the purchase of certain equipment while parking other pieces of machinery.<\/p>\n<p>The publication says an internal memo cites conditions, reliability constraints and cost pressures for limiting production.<\/p>\n<p>It comes after the <a href=\"https:\/\/vocm.com\/2025\/11\/19\/liberal-mhas-request-meetings-after-layoffs-at-ioc\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">mining giant laid off staff <\/a>late last year.<\/p>\n<p>The matter was raised in the House of Assembly by Liberal member for Cartwright-L\u2019Anse au Clair, Lisa Dempster.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat can the minister tell us about these cuts to a vital part of Labrador\u2019s economy?\u201d Dempster asked.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/ioc-lab-west-mine.jpg\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-188065\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/ioc-lab-west-mine.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"400\"  \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Energy Minister Lloyd Parrott blamed the situation on a lack of oversight under the previous government. \u201cThey\u2019re in a situation now where they have to make up for it, and readjust, and that\u2019s exactly what they\u2019re doing\u201d says Parrott. \u201cThey\u2019re coming here to meet with us on May 19th, we have been helping them through the way and we will continue to help them.\u201d)<\/p>\n<p>Dempster says what Lab West needs is an opportunity for growth through greater access to electricity. She says IOC and other companies are watching the potential for expansion \u201cslip away\u201d without an MOU on Churchill Falls expansion.<\/p>\n<p>Minister Parrott says government is talking to the major mining companies on a regular basis.<\/p>\n<p>Including IOC, Kami, Tata, Takora and Iron Bear, \u201cand they know when they are ready to build, they will have electricity.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Government has confirmed that cuts are coming to operations at IOC in Labrador West. According to AllNewfoundlandLabrador the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":654438,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[45,49,48],"class_list":["post-654437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=654437"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654437\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/654438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=654437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=654437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=654437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}