Land Purchase Clears Hurdle For Mill
Newcastle Herald
Thursday July 25, 2002
THE NSW Government has bought 550ha of land from Tomago Aluminum, clearing a major hurdle in the way of the long-awaited Austeel mill.
The land is to the south-east of the aluminium smelter between Tomago Rd and the north arm of the Hunter River.
The sale was flagged in February last year when Premier Bob Carr and Treasurer Michael Egan came to Newcastle to launch the Austeel project.
Austeel has been allocated 150ha of the site, in an area between the river and the heritage-listed Tomago House.
A Tomago Aluminium spokesman said contracts had been exchanged with the Government.
The sale was yet to be settled but neither side was expecting any impediments.
Tomago declined to comment on the sale price but property experts told the Herald that `en globo' (large scale) undeveloped industrial land was selling in the Hunter for about $40,000 a hectare.
The eventual price would depend on how much could be developed and how much was riverside wetland.
At $40,000 a hectare, 550ha would be worth $22million. The 150ha Austeel site would be valued at $6.25million.
The Tomago spokesman said it had taken longer than expected to complete the transfer because the 550ha was an amalgamation of blocks that Tomago had bought from farmers when it was developing the smelter nearly 20 years ago.
The Austeel camp had been quiet in recent months, leading to speculation that the $US3billion ($A5.45billion) project was in serious trouble.
Austeel general manager John Elmore said yesterday that the project had been `effectively on hold' for the past few months but it was being `geared back up again' now that the land details had been decided.
`At this stage the project is anything but dead; there's a lot of life in it,' Mr Elmore said.
© 2002 Newcastle Herald