Enterprise Ireland did its bit to help out the beleaguered workers at Tara Mines by giving €3.8 million in State aid to the company behind the mine, new European Commission data shows.
The figure was recently disclosed in a European Commission database, “under the Temporary Crisis and Transition Framework for State aid measures to support the economy following the aggression against Ukraine by Russia”.
The mine, which reopened in the past few weeks, had been mothballed in July 2023, with its owner, Boliden, blaming “significant and unsustainable financial losses” with rising energy costs and a falling zinc price.
The mine employed about 650 workers prior to the closure, but thanks to retirements and redundancies, that figure is now closer to 400.
There was also a significant cost associated with keeping the mine – which had turnover of about €250 million in 2022 – shut down for that period.
Boliden disclosed that the mothballed plant made a loss of €65 million last year. Its turnover fell to about €90 million, generated in the first half of the year before the closure, but it generated costs even while closed.
Filings made by Boliden show that in the first quarter of the year, the rolling cost of “keeping the Tara mine in care and maintenance is estimated at around €13 million per quarter”, and by the second quarter it was putting that figure at €25 million per quarter, a cost that it said continued through quarters three and four.
It’s not clear just what the full cost for 2024 comes to, given that the mine reopened during the fourth quarter, but by Cantillon’s calculations it’s possible that the full cost of having the mine closed could be more than €100 million.
And it’s also not clear whether that figure covers a previously disclosed restructuring charge of 358 million Swedish krona (€31 million) related to the mine.
All of which means that the €3.8 million given to the mine by Enterprise Ireland in May will not have gone very far, given the enormous costs of maintaining the mine while it was closed.
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