Mass layoffs are coming to the Sibanye-Stillwater mining operations of southcentral Montana. The company Thursday announced roughly 700 people, about 40 percent of staff, will be losing their jobs.
The Stillwater and East Boulder mines are the largest platinum and palladium mines in North America, but Vice President for Legal and External Affairs Heather McDowell said the Montana mining operations haven’t been profitable for the last couple of years.
She said high costs and low palladium prices contributed to a $350 million dollar loss at Montana operations.
As a result, the company announced Thursday it will be cutting the number of Montana employees from around 1,680 people down to just under 1000, with the greatest number from Stillwater Mine near Nye.
“Unfortunately, just about half of all of our costs are people related, and we've just made it to the point where we can't sustain the losses any longer, and so we have had to resort to a layoff,” McDowell said.
Other cutbacks include putting the western part of the Stillwater Mine on ice and focusing on the Stillwater East section, which McDowell said is higher grade and lower cost to operate. She said they’ll also scale down production at the East Boulder Mine near McLeod.
Looking at the changing market and loss of value for Montana-mined products, McDowell blamed a flood of Russian palladium into global and domestic markets.
“We think that there have probably been stockpiles in Russia and obviously, from a price standpoint, it is very hard for us to compete here under US standards,” McDowell said.
Palladium is used in car manufacturing, including electric vehicles.
McDowell said the company gave notice to employees on Thursday, and the layoffs will take effect November 12th and later.
News of Sibayne-Stillwater’s layoffs and restructuring propelled Montana’s two senators into action.
Both Democrat Jon Tester and Republican Steve Daines introduced separate bills banning the import of essential minerals from Russia including palladium and platinum.
A news release from Daines blamed the Biden administration for failing to protect Montana jobs while a release from Tester said he had spoken with the Deputy Treasury Secretary, pressing for the Biden Administration to support the impacted workers.
