Business
4 March, 2025
Major blow for Shire as another mine hits financial strife
The Ardmore Phosphate Rock Mine at Dajarra has entered voluntary administration.
A major North West phosphate mine has entered voluntary administration, ending speculation the business was struggling to pay local contractors.
In another setback for Cloncurry Shire, the company that operates Ardmore Phosphate Rock Mine at Dajarra has run out of money.
Cloncurry mayor Greg Campbell said local “mum and dad” small businesses would likely to be among the creditors impacted by the decision, many of whom were already owed significant sums after the shutdown of three junior copper mines in the shire last year.
In an ASX statement released on Tuesday, parent-resource company Centrex announced that FTI Consulting had been appointed administrators for its subsidiary business, AgriFlex Pty Ltd, which operates the Ardmore mine, located about 20km west of Dajarra.
Centrex had voluntarily suspended ASX trading in December, which was further extended last month, as the company looked to raise investment capital to support the beleaguered mining business.
It followed months of rumours that local Cloncurry Shire contractors were not being fully paid for work completed.
North West Weekly understands that some businesses have not been paid since at least November.
Centrex said in the statement that the voluntary administrations would continue to operate both Centrex and AgriFlex with a view of “assessing possible restructuring options”.
It is unclear whether the employment of any of the mostly FIFO workforce would be immediately impacted.
Ardmore had reached its annual production target of 625,000t last year, with an ambitious plan to eventually replace about 60 per cent of Australia’s phosphate rock imports.
The company had spent more than $10 million in the past two years to renovations to its worker accommodation, waste disposal dam and reverse osmosis plant.
Cr Campbell said the announcement was another dark day for Cloncurry Shire, which has confronted a string of similar mine shut downs in recent months.
He said Ardmore Mine paid annual rates between $100,000 and $200,000, which meant the council was likely to also be among the list of creditors.
“There have been rumours going around this weekend and we hoped the rumours weren’t going to be true,” he said on Tuesday.
“It feels like Groundhog Day – we have had the administrators called into multiple other miners recently and it frustrates more than anything that those who are hurt the most in these scenarios are the small local businesses that the resource executives and policy makers don’t seem to give two hoots about.
“When these mines close in the Cloncurry Shire, they are not paying their workers' entitlements and not paying the small businesses.
“These are ‘mum and dad’ businesses and real people in our community that are affected by these decisions.
“Council does not have the levers to pull to make policy changes to see these smaller miners succeed but it has to come with the assurance that they won’t hurt local small business.”
Member for Traeger Robbie Katter pointed the blame at what he called a broken rail system in the North West.
Mr Katter said the line was unique in that it was the only length of track in Queensland that had to be completely funded by users, as opposed to being propped up by the state and utilised as an economic-enabler.
He said he was deeply disappointed to learn Ardmore would fold, costing 150 jobs, 50 of which he said were local.
“Centrex is very regretfully another victim of government complacency around industry-enabling infrastructure,” Mr Katter said.
“I have been in talks with them and they have explained to me the economics just do not stack up, particularly around the cost of logistics and what they are having to spend getting their product to port.
“Two-thirds of their operating costs were going to logistics alone, and that is many tens of millions of dollars annually.
“Queensland Rail has refused to use legal avenues available to them to provide discretionary pricing to this, and other projects, and sadly this is the result.
“Had those road and rail access charges been halved or at least reduced, we may have had a very different outcome here.”
Cr Campbell said the announcement would also impact the agreements the council had to work alongside AgriFlex to provide infrastructure upgrades and employment opportunities in Dajarra.
“The clear expectation I had from the (AgriFlex) company was their main accommodation site would be located in the Dajarra township, which would provide stimulus for the pub and the roadhouse and would provide employment opportunities for the people in Dajarra,” he said.
“I had also received funding commitments from the company to assist council with upgrades for Ergon to provide better power supply to the town.
“The company had done a bit of that work – it had not progressed as far as I would have hoped – but I would hope through the administration process we can still find a path forward.”