Home

Who is Xstrata?

  • a multinational mining company, operating in 19 countries including Australia, South Africa, Canada and Colombia, with interests including coal, nickel, zinc, copper and platinum.
  • the fourth largest coal mining company in the world.
  • produces 109 million tonnes of coal per year worldwide, 66 million of which comes from 18 mines in Australia.
  • controlling shareholder is the Swiss-based commodities trader Glencore. The two companies share a common chairman. Glencore has a long history of questionable dealings with rogue states: apartheid South Africa, and Iraq under Saddam Hussein.
  • Xstrata closed the Windimurra vanadium mine in Western Australia in order to boost world prices for the benefit of its other vanadium operations in Africa. In doing so it deliberately stripped the site equipment in order to make it difficult for a competitor to take over the operation. It also meant that tens of millions of dollars of taxpayers' money spent on providing infrastructure for the mine was wasted. (Visit www.parliament.wa.gov.au/web/newwebparl.nsf/iframewebpages/Committees+-+Inquiries, type "Windimurra Report" into the search box).
  • is attempting to take over Anglo-American, a competing mining multinational with extensive Australian and South African operations. It is offering Anglo-American ‘efficiencies and savings‘ – code for downward wages pressure and job cuts.
  • seeks government subsidies and opposes action on dangerous climate change, complaining Australia’s proposed Emissions Trading Scheme is ‘unfair’.
  • operates mines in Colombia, where workers are threatened and murdered for being involved in trade unions.
  • has spent millions fighting convictions for the deaths of 4 miners at Gretley Colliery in 1996 on technical grounds. They will do anything to avoid responsibility, and will go to the courts to ask that the entire Occupational Health and Safety system be overturned.
  • share price has plummeted since mid 2008, putting pressure on executives to cut costs and restore their bonuses.
  • needs to be kept accountable.