Amex Resources Limited’s Mba Delta Ironsands Project facility at the Lautoka Port is facing difficulties and as a result has laid off 107 workers.

It could not be ascertained at present whether the problem, came about through the outbreak of the Coronavirus.

This could have hampered the shipment of the finished product to China.

Or affected the shipment of materials needed from China for the processing of the iron sands.

The $335 million company set up to process iron sand in Lautoka laid off the workers on Monday afternoon and this has been confirmed by the company’s general manager Alivereti Tuidravuni.

Mr Tuidravuni, however requested questions to be sent in and has confirmed the company’s head office in Australia would reply to the queries.

While confirmation is yet to be received by the parent company, a worker who was laid off said they were told the company was facing financial difficulties.

Notification

A worker, who did not wish to be named said they were notified last Friday by the company on their intentions to lay off workers.

“We were told by the company that they could not meet their weekly expenses that amounted to around $700, 000,” the former worker said.

“We were told that we could either work for 30 days from Saturday (February 22) and get paid but if we did not want to work we would still get paid.

“After the 30 days, the company said they would pay us one week extra pay and all our outstanding leave.”

The worker said they were all disheartened as most of them had families that relied on them to provide for basic necessities.

He was based at the Ba River mouth where most of the extraction and processing works took place which was on board the company’s vessels and processing plant.

“There were close to 100 employees who worked here in Ba and most have been laid off,” he said.

“There were also some workers laid off from the Lautoka facility,” he said.

About the Amex Resources Limited

Amex Resources Limited contracted Chinese port developer CCCC First Harbour Consultants Company Limited to build the facility and this got underway in early February 2017 and completed the works last year.

Their first shipment of 28,000 tonnes was delivered to China by the vessel Warnow Merkur in late August, 2019 with the second in November.

The company started extracting the sand from an area covering 15 kilometres long and four kilometres wide from the mouth of the Ba River and it had first applied for mining licence in August 2008.

The sand is extracted and processed on-board a processing facility and taken by barges to the in Lautoka for further processing before being shipped to China.

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