'We can't imagine that we will be immune from it': How West Australian miners are protecting a $155 billion industry from COVID-19

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Western Australia's iron ore miners are doing all they can to prevent COVID-19 infiltrating their workforces.

"For Western Australia, in particular, it's a massive source of revenue," Bell Potter Securities's Giuliano Sala Tenna said.

"Historically, we've seen the state and federal governments have generally been fairly conservative in their budget forecasts and that's meant they've had these nice windfalls," Mr Sala Tenna explained. Australia's biggest iron ore miner, Rio Tinto, tests about 12,000 mine workers a week at two testing facilities it has set up at Perth Airport.

"As we've seen in other states in Australia, and across the world, we can't imagine that we will be immune from it.""We have, in the last week, stood-up screening for employees at our Perth office as well, where employees will be tested on their first day at work each week," Mr Trott added.The worker at the centre of its cluster last month tested negative in Perth and it was not until days later that they had symptoms and produced a positive PCR test while at work.

There was not any further spread, but FMG mine workers have been having rapid antigen tests since then. "There will be lots of dislocations within the projects, so we're concerned that we're going to see some weak quarterlies, which could see some knee-jerk reactions to some of the share prices [for] those miners."

 

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