Neil Holdom: New Plymouth mayor on Methanex scaling down to one plant and laying off workers

New Plymouth's mayor is blaming the last Government's gas policy for Methanex's proposal to scale down.

The country's largest gas user plans to move from a two-plant operation to one, and lay off staff for the foreseeable future.

Its managing director says policy settings since 2018 haven't been conducive to sustaining gas supplies for more than one plant.

Neil Holdom says it'll be a blow for the region, but the writing's been on the wall.

"We saw this coming in 2018, with the last Government's flawed energy policy. This is a direct and logical consequence that was always going to happen - we told them it would happen."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Ever do for z Ellen.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
More bad news unfortunately for central North Island regions. In
the last hour method X has announced it's planning to
scale down its operation. It's going to cut staff and
it's going to move from two plants down to one. Now.
This is, unfortunately, just one day after Windstone announced it's
going to close its two mills in the rou A
Peahoo district. New Plymouth Mayor Neil Holdham is with me
on this. Hey, Neil, gooday, Neil. There were rumors right,

(00:25):
and they've been doing the rounds for a little while.
Did you see this coming? Oh?

Speaker 1 (00:30):
We look, we saw this coming in twenty eighteen with
the last government's flawed energy policy. This is a direct
and logical consequence. It was always going to happen. We
told them it would happen. Our omissions are going up
and New Zealand manufacturers are suffering. And what astounds me
is that in the face of you know, basically this

(00:51):
is a policy which is going to shut down New
Zealand manufacturing. That and I went and spoke with Chris
Upkins and Meghan Woods and Labor and said, come on,
you've seen the evidence. Can you actually change your policy.
Let's find a middle way, work with the opposition, I mean,
work with the government, and let's get out there and

(01:13):
get some gas and get people working again and we
can get emissions down. And the response I got is
it's a bottom line, we're not going to change it.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
Well is the gas to get though, because I mean,
I am very sympathetic to your argument. But Richard Tweedy,
formerly of Toddy Energy, spoke yesterday to Business Desk and
said that just isn't gas. We're running out.

Speaker 1 (01:31):
Well, the reality is we've had since since twenty eighteen,
the incentives to go looking for it haven't been there.
You know, there was some work done to chase after
you know, the stuff that was already kind of in development.
But you know, we know that if we were out
looking and looking hard and there was a long term,

(01:51):
you know, a positive long term outlook that that I
sort of went through the electoral cycles, that there would
be more gas out there. The reality is the last
government wanted to turn off the tap. And you know
what astounds me. I saw the unions in terms of
the mills having a crack at the current government. But

(02:12):
they need to be asking. You know, these politicians that
they support well what's your policy going to do for us?
Because don't think this is the last one. I mean,
the dairy workers were at their just Transition event and
I said, how are we going to dry millions and
millions of leaders of milk power milk every year during
the flush and keep everybody working in the dairy factories

(02:34):
if the price of energy goes through the roof? And
how are we going to keep our emissions down if
we're replacing gas with coal? And you know the answer
I got was, oh, you know that that's a good question, Neil,
but we're not sure that there's a future for the
dairy industry anyway.

Speaker 2 (02:50):
And it was like you what, yeah, cookie stuff, what's
it going to do this methan X decision? What's this
going to do to your region?

Speaker 1 (02:57):
Look, it's it's that there's I think potentially around seventy
good hard working Kiwis are going to lose their jobs.
And they're really good jobs at Mechnics, they're well looked after.
The other thing is Mechanics has historically anchored the gas
expiration in New Zealand because they basically say we'll buy
everything that you can produce. So it's good that methanicks

(03:20):
have said, we're still going to you know, we're still
hanging on by our fingernails, and there is an opportunity
for the opposition to step up and say to New
Zealand as we're going to put our you know, we're
going to put our country before our party political objectives
and do the right thing. And that's you know, I've
asked for another meeting with presciptions. He's shown that he

(03:43):
can be pragmatic and I have you know, confidence that eventually,
if you know, if people see the evidence of poor
decision making, eventually they will change their minds so that
that really is what we need. And then I believe that,
you know, with the with both sides of the House
admitting to an energy policy that keeps New Zealanders at

(04:03):
work and allows us to manufacture that we will be
able to attract investment and find more gas and then
we don't need to import Indonesian colt.

Speaker 2 (04:12):
Yeah, well make a very good argument, Neil. Thank you,
Neil Holdham, you Plymouth Mayor.

Speaker 1 (04:17):
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