A Queensland parliamentary committee is due to report back in November on the bid by Katter’s Australian Party to loosen Glencore’s hold on Mount Isa mineral assets.

KAP leader and Member for Traeger Robbie Katter briefed the Clean Economy Jobs, Resources and Transport Committee last week on the case for the Mount Isa Mines Limited Agreement Amendment Bill, saying it was not an anti-Glencore bill but a pro-Queensland one.

And he pointed to Evolution Mining’s success in extending the expected life of the Ernest Henry copper-gold mine after buying it from Glencore as he pushed to open the way for new players to make the most of Mount Isa’s copper endowment.

Mr Katter’s call for change comes after Glencore’s 2023 announcement of plans to close its Mount Isa Mines underground copper operations and copper concentrator in the second half of 2025.

Related: KAP on the warpath over Glencore’s Isa copper exit

The company has stated that the remaining mineral resources are not economically viable due to low ore grades and areas where, due to geological conditions, safe extraction could not be achieved using current technology.

This, coupled with ageing infrastructure, meant the copper assets had reached the end of mine life, Glencore said.

But Mr Katter told the committee many others were keen to take on the resource.

“They have made inquiries saying, ‘Can we talk?’, but the leaseholder has said, ‘We’re not interested in selling.’ It seems a strange set of circumstances in this state where there is a resource that provides 1200 jobs and copper production to fulfil the aspirations of the government both at a state and a federal level but the person who was granted that lease has said, ‘We can’t be bothered mining that anymore. It is easier to do that somewhere else,’ and the Queensland minister says, ‘There’s nothing we can do about it.’ This legislation addresses that problem. It gives the minister and the government the right to do something about it.”

Mr Katter was queried over what led to his belief that there was still a significant copper reserve at Mount Isa that could be mined.

“If you are after empirical data, that is pretty difficult because you can only get that from Glencore, the current leaseholder, and they perhaps would not be so forthcoming with the viability of their copper for commercial reasons,” he told the committee.

“As was said to me by a couple of people in the industry who are higher level participants, go and look at their annual report. Look at the number of tonnes they report to their shareholders to show off—‘We’ve got this many tonnes of copper there’—and look at the current price of copper. Beyond that, most people would say – whether or not it is problematic – that is a huge opportunity.

“For other evidence along those lines, look at the Ernest Henry mine, which was their second biggest copper operation. Glencore sold the Cobar copper mine a few years ago and Ernest Henry, which was their next biggest copper mine.

“They repeatedly told the public there were only four years left to run at Ernest Henry.

Related: Evolution continues to build Ernest Henry potential

“They sold it to Evolution Mining, which is a junior Australian mining company from Tasmania. They said, ‘This is a really big mine for us to purchase,’ and within a year they had raised extra capital and set a long-term plan in place.

“Within 18 months of owning it they had added 17 years to a mine that definitely only had four years left to run. Now it has 17 years for a junior miner.”

Mr Katter said it was his personal view that Glencore took a short-term view on things. “They are a global commodity trader; they are not a miner,” he said.

He highlighted the shift in circumstances since the Mount Isa Mines Limited Agreement Act was created in 1985 and said the business in charge of the mines in the city now did not have the same concern for the collective benefit of Queenslanders or Mount Isa people.

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