{"id":102365,"date":"2026-08-13T00:39:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T00:39:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/102365\/"},"modified":"2026-08-13T00:39:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T00:39:13","slug":"australia-commits-us1-76bil-to-keep-rio-tinto-aluminium-smelter-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/102365\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia commits US$1.76bil to keep Rio Tinto aluminium smelter open"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" alt=\"\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"912\" height=\"608\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"html-img h-auto w-full\" style=\"color:transparent\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Rio-Tinto-FB.jpg\"\/>Rio Tinto\u2019s Tomago aluminium smelter, Australia\u2019s largest electricity user, could close if it failed to secure viable power beyond 2028. (Rio Tinto pic)<br \/>\nSYDNEY: Australia on Thursday said it would provide A$2.5 billion (US$1.76 billion) to help keep global miner Rio Tinto\u2019s Tomago aluminium smelter, the country\u2019s largest, open beyond 2028, with more affordable and reliable power supply.<\/p>\n<p class=\"py-1.5 mb-4 text-lg\">The deal would support 3 gigawatts of new electricity generation for the smelter, with the financial package to be jointly funded by the federal and New South Wales state governments, a government statement said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"py-1.5 mb-4 text-lg\">Rio Tinto warned in October that Tomago, the country\u2019s largest electricity user, could be forced to close if it failed to secure commercially viable power beyond 2028.<\/p>\n<p class=\"py-1.5 mb-4 text-lg\">Tomago will invest at least A$1.1 billion in the facility as part of the deal, including A$100 million to drive further decarbonisation activities at the smelter.<\/p>\n<p class=\"py-1.5 mb-4 text-lg\">Like several other Australian smelters struggling with high energy costs during the transition to renewables, Tomago was built last century to take advantage of abundant cheap coal-fired power.<\/p>\n<p class=\"py-1.5 mb-4 text-lg\">The federal government announced in December it was seeking to secure long-term, fixed-price energy supply for the smelter after its current power contract expires in 2028. Tomago employs more than 1,000 full-time staff and 200 contractors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rio Tinto\u2019s Tomago aluminium smelter, Australia\u2019s largest electricity user, could close if it failed to secure viable power&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":102366,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[20718],"tags":[345,10317,43025,43026,12991],"class_list":["post-102365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rio-tinto","tag-breaking-news","tag-current-events","tag-malaysia-news","tag-malaysian-updates","tag-rio-tinto"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/117085415848618994","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102365\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}