John Carnegie: Energy Resources Aotearoa CEO on Methanex's proposal to cut staff and downsize to one plant

Another blow for regional New Zealand and the manufacturing industry is being seen as potentially devastating. 

Methanex is proposing cutting staff and moving from two plants to one. 

Earlier this week Winstone pulp confirmed plans to shut, putting more than 200 jobs on the chopping block after soaring energy prices. 

Energy Resources Aotearoa's John Carnegie told Ryan Bridge the system is going from crisis to crisis - something he believes is predictable following the oil and gas ban. 

He says it leaves a hole in the confidence of investors. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Another blow for regional New Zealand. The country's largest gas user,
method X has proposed to scale down its operations for
the foreseeable future. So they had two plants that have
been shut until the end of October to save gas.
Now the company is consulting on only turning one of
them back on. That means fewer jobs. John Carnegie's with
us is the Energy Resources Alted are John, Good morning,

(00:22):
Good morning, Ryan. Now, I know that method X is
a member of your organization, so you can't speak too
much about specifics. Do you think there's a chance that
they could pull out of New Zealand altogether?

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Oh? Look, well that depends on how much guess we
are new guest production we get. So we're certainly hoping
hoping not. This is this is devastating, potentially devastating for
regional New Zealand and nationally. Actually, Ryan, do.

Speaker 1 (00:49):
You have any update on the governments because obviously there's
a task force going on that's looking at issues, there's
a wider review going on. Have you had any meaningful
update from the government on plans for those upstream gas producers?

Speaker 2 (01:05):
Well, yes, the government has made a number of announcements
with respect to the or in the gas sector. But
actually what we need to see as we want it
to move more quickly, they actually make the changes it's promised,

(01:27):
because of course we haven't seen a bill in the
House yet. Unfortunately, finding our energy system lurching from crisis
to crisis seems to be an entirely predictable result of
the shop all and guests being in twenty eighteen.

Speaker 1 (01:41):
Have you had any chats with Labor or have they
reached out to you at all as an industry organization
to say what exactly is it you need, you know,
we want to talk about our policy, our energy policy,
anything like that in recent months.

Speaker 2 (01:56):
I yes, we engage with all political parties and and
we've certainly engaged with the Labor Party. But from what
I can ascertain, their policy position, their current policy position
is going to be dis same as the ones that
took into the election last year.

Speaker 1 (02:18):
And what does that mean for confidence and investing?

Speaker 2 (02:23):
I mean, what it does Ryan is it is it
leaves a massive hole in the confidence of investors. In fact,
right across the spectrum of fossil fuel use, So it's
not just production, but it's also if you have plans

(02:44):
for a guest fired power station or in fact, there
are some discussions recently going on around L and G.
The result of the Labor Party continuing to say it
will maintain or re establish the oil and guest band
being I see even musing about whether or not onslow

(03:08):
to pump hydro scheme will be back on the table.
It just creates a massive, massive sovereign risk and dampens
the desire of those who might be interested in making
those investments.

Speaker 1 (03:21):
John, thank you very much for joining us this one, John,
I really appreciate it, especially so early. John Carnegie the
Energy Resources out Heed A METHODIX is a member of
that organization. I do also want to say that we
did ask the leader and the energy spokesperson for Labor
to come on, weren't available at this hour. We also
asked the gas producers, the upstream gas producers Todd and Omb.

(03:42):
We also asked Methnix to come on as well. They're
not talking at the moment while they consult on this proposal.

Speaker 2 (03:47):
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Speaker 1 (03:51):
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