240 EZ (Electrolytic Zinc Industries) See current profile on ERA, also the Ranger, ERA, Peko Wallsend and North Ltd dossiers.
EZ is a wholly-owned subsidiary of EZ Industries, which until fairly recently was dominated by British capital as only British shareholders could hold shares in the parent company (1).
It was acquired by NBH Holdings in 1984, after protracted negotiations (2). The following year, there were rumours that NBH could make a play for ERA, the operating company of the Ranger mine, which EZ and Peko Wallsend discovered. But, in the event, NBH sold its ERA stake itself to Pioneer Concrete (3). By 1987, Peko had itself gained at least a 5% holding in NBH (4), and NBH was bidding for control of Peko (4) with which it later merged (5). Thus, both Peko and EZ - cited more than a decade ago as "the most able of the public uranium companies to finance their own development" (6) - were intimately tied in with the fortunes of NBH, which itself holds significant shares in some of Australia's most important mining corporations (including Alcoa and BHP).
EZ owns several mines in Tasmania, including the Rosebery, Hercules and Mt. Farrell mines (7,8). Its Risdon smelter (Tasmania) - the electrolytic zinc plant which gave the company its name - commenced operations in 1971, though it has suffered from protracted industrial action in recent years (9), notably a "rolling strike" which reportedly had little effect on deliveries (10), but did affect production (11).
The Elura zinc-lead-silver mine in New South Wales was the company's "big hope for the future" in 1981 (12). Opened in 1983 (8), and beset by difficulties (9), this mine was EZ's most important new venture in the early 1980s. EZ sold its interest in the Golden Grove (Scuddles and Gossan Hill) zinc-copper-silver prospect in Western Australia in 1987 (13). (Amax also withdrew from this prospect in the 1980s: Esso now holds 35% equity) (13).
EZ has held a uranium JV with Aberfoyle (14), but its main joint interest with this fellow Australian company is now in ore-purchase from Aberfoyle's Que River mine (7).
Recently, EZ also agreed to offer an option on its 10.76% stake in the Thalanga (Queensland) base metals deposit (associated with BHP), a high-grade multi-mineral deposit, to Outokumpu Oy and Pancontinental (15).
At Coronation Hill, site of an old uranium mine in the Alligator River region of the Northern Territory (the Pine Creek geosyncline) EZ is exploring a promising gold-platinum-paladium deposit which lies in Stage III of the Kakadu National Park, where mining is intended to be permitted (16) but which is the subject of a land claim by Aborigines (13).
EZ's partnership with Peko Wallsend in ERA and its exploitation of the huge Ranger uranium deposit has been extremely important to both companies in guaranteeing their financial solvency. Final approval for the mine was given in 1978, four years after the two companies signed a memorandum to develop the mine with the AAEC, which then held 50% of the equity (17). This was a few months after agreement had been reached with a small number of traditional Oenpelli landowners under the aegis of the Northern Land Council.
EZ and Peko were to contribute 13.75% of the finance for 25% of the mine's output each, while making their own marketing agreements (17). Both called the agreement "a major milestone". A year later the partners signed their first contract with South Korea.
When the Federal Australian government put up the AAEC's share in Ranger for public sale with considerable interest expressed by numerous companies - EZ opposed the arrangement, on the grounds that this lucrative share should not be sold at a profit, but re-assigned to the original owners (ie Peko and itself). Although Peko won the bid for the AAEC's relinquished half in Ranger, the two companies later came to an agreement to join together in forming Energy Resources of Australia Ltd (ERA) (18). And, in late 1980, EZ was given a 30.5% share in ERA (19) later increased to 30.96%. These "A" shares yielded a dividend in 1984 (20) when EZ's share of ERA brought in A$9.1M (21).
It is important to realise that, together with Peko, EZ has been exploring other areas of the Ranger uranium region, finding significant mineralisation, after the Ranger agreement was signed (22), at Barote Springs, north of the mine (23).
Two of EZ's directors, AW Hamer and GA Mackay, have been members of the ERA board, while Mackay in the late 1970s was also chairman of the Uranium Producers Forum (24).
Apart from the widespread and international opposition to Ranger, EZ was the focus of a unique dissident shareholder's intervention at its annual general meeting in 1978. Shareholders with Social Responsibility - about forty of them - tried to ask questions of the chairman, Sir Edward Cohen. Failure to answer resulted in barracking, the throwing of confetti, whistle blowing, and, eventually, a take-over of the platform, at which point police moved in to escort shareholders from the hall. One major purpose of the meeting was to pass a resolution limiting attendance at AGMs to shareholders with 100 or more shares, a manifest ploy against socially responsible shareholders. The resolution duly passed (25).
In a statement issued at an earlier demonstration against EZ, FCAATSI (Federation for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders), the Aboriginal Advancement League, FoE, MAUM (Movement Against Uranium Mining), and others, condemned the government for failing to implement some of the Ranger Inquiry (Fox Report) recommendations - including resumption of the Mudginberri and Munnarlary pastoral leases (see Peko) (26). The demonstrators demanded that all further mining developments should be suspended until the ecology of the region was adequately protected and Aborigines were assured control over the Kakadu National Park (27).
SOURCE: "The Gulliver File - Mines, people and land: a global battleground" by Roger Moody.
Published in 1992 by Minewatch, 218 Liverpool Road, London Nl ILE, UK, and WISE-Glen Aplin, Po Box 87, Glen Aplin Q 4381, Australia.
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