Photo by: Reuters
PERTH (miningweekly.com) – ASX-listed Gujarat NRE Coking Coal on Friday announced that it had introduced a voluntary redundancy scheme as part of its efforts to reduce its workforce by about 20%.
A business review has prompted the company to make significant operational changes, including the decision to make 90 positions redundant.
Gujarat chairperson and CEO Jasbir Singh said on Friday that the company had received a number of redundancy applications, and after perusing each application, 47 of these had been accepted.
“The company has been through a difficult time with coal prices remaining low for an extended period of time and reduced production resulting in severe cash flow issues. The recent investment of over $110-million from its new majority shareholder, Jindal Steel and Power, has allowed the company to revive its cash flow issues,” said Singh.
He noted that significant effort had been made over the past three months to not only restore and improve the current operations, but also the continuity of mining operations to maximise employment.
“The market conditions are yet to improve, and it is absolutely critical for the company to keep its cost down in order to be competitive,” Singh added.
The company was now reviewing the possible restructure and relocation of the workforce over its two mines in New South Wales.
The mines, NRE No. 1 colliery and NRE Wongawilli colliery, contain estimated coal reserves of 125-million tonnes and resources of 651-million tonnes.