Australia's Gove alumina refinery owned by Rio Tinto could be left looking for new sources of fuel to stay in business after the Northern Territory government said it would not back a proposed deal to supply the gas.
Earlier this year, the government offered 300 petajoules of gas over 10 years from its domestic supply source to save the loss-making refinery, operated by Rio Tinto subsidiary Pacific Aluminium.
Rio Tinto threatened to close the refinery due to high operating costs and market pressures unless it could find sources to replace expensive diesel with natural gas.
"The original proposal by Pacific Aluminium was always conditional on a rigorous due diligence process and unfortunately the results have revealed unacceptable risk to the NT economy and taxpayers," Northern Territory Chief Minister Adam Giles said.
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