http://www.theprovince.com/Debt+ridden+Tinto+digs+deep+workforce/1060335/story.htmlMultinational mining firm Rio Tinto, struggling with about $40 billion US in debt, said yesterday it would cut 13 per cent of its workforce.
Its Canadian employees -- including those working for Montreal-based Rio Tinto Alcan -- won't know the impact of the announcement until early in the new year, a company spokesman said.
"We are not detailing [job or production cuts] any further other than the overall global figures that were announced," Stefano Bertolli said.
The cutting process will continue into the first quarter of 2009, he said. The company's $2.5-billion upgrade to its aluminum smelter in Kitimat, B.C., will proceed but will advance more slowly as timelines for the project are revised.
"The money committed to it is still there," he said. "The spend rate will be a little slower to take into account market conditions and demand for our products."
All previously approved projects in Quebec "will continue to progress, although we are going to look at the spend-rate and timetables for the projects," Bertolli said.
Meanwhile, a report yesterday indicated Rio Tinto-owned Iron Ore Co. of Canada is putting on hold plans for an $800-million expansion to its iron-mining operations in Labrador City.
"All expansion programs are now suspended," a spokesman said.
Rio said it would reduce its global head count by 14,000, including nearly six per cent of its own employees and more than half its contractors, and increase the range of assets it was looking to sell.
"Given the difficult and uncertain economic conditions, and the unprecedented rate of deterioration of our markets, our imperative is to maximize cash generation and pay down debt," Rio Tinto's CEO Tom Albanese said. "We will minimize our operating and capital costs to appropriately low levels until we see credible and meaningful signs of a recovery in our markets."
After Rio Tinto took over Alcan in October 2007 -- becoming the world's largest aluminum producer -- about 26 per cent of the new company's assets were in Canada.
