Mount Isa has shaken off the gloom over the imminent closure of one regional Queensland’s largest businesses.

Mount Isa City Council chief executive officer Tim Rose will be outlining a response plan to Glencore’s decision to close its copper operations in 2025 and the copper smelter in 2030 at the North West MPX in Mount Isa next week. 

A quick response from the State and council had encouraged optimism, Mr Rose said.

The State had committed $50 million to assist with accelerating other resource projects in the area and help support an adjustment package, he said.

“The ‘end of the worlders’ would be missing the amount of minerals that are actually in the North West province,” Mr Rose said. 

“Mount Isa and the North West area has got a huge amount of resources that are going to be needed in the new world. 

“There’re a lot of critical minerals that are here (and) there’re a lot of rare earths that aren’t available in most other places.”

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Restructuring presented opportunity, Mr Rose said. 

“I think as technology brings further opportunities to manufacture, the town will go back to growing again,” he said. 

“We’ve always been known for just digging materials up and not doing a lot of processing.

“I think we’ve got to get smarter about how we value-add to the mining industry rather than just digging it up, sending it through to the port and out of the country. We need to do a value-add proposition to what’s out here.”

Phosphate, rare earths, copper and vanadium are on a list of emerging minerals which will be examined in detail at the MPX.

It had helped boost optimism in the town, Mr Rose said.

“Well, there’s still a lot of positivity and a lot of people who have been here for a long term always say that mining goes up and down, but they always believe that there’ll be a recovery,” he said. 

“Some people compare it to tourism in Cairns, for instance. It goes up and down fairly rapidly, but it’s generally on a good trajectory, but we just need to turn the population base around and get more people in town and make it more viable. 

“So, a lot of the locals are still very, very positive around it, but it’s just a big hit to take.”

The North West MPX is being held in Mount Isa from May 7-9.

Image at top of page: Mount Isa, L72 Shaft GFM