Sherritt Temporarily Lays Off 280 Canadian Workers, 47% of Workforce

Sherritt International Corp. is temporarily laying off about 280 employees — 47 per cent of its Canadian workforce — as it struggles to restart a refinery that has sat idle since its Cuban ore supply ran dry.

The layoffs are expected to last roughly 90 days, the Toronto-listed company (TSX: S) said. That's a full quarter without a paycheck for nearly one in two of its Canadian staff, though the company frames the move as temporary rather than a permanent downsizing.

What caused the shutdown?

The chain of events starts far from Alberta. Sherritt shut down refining operations at its mill in Fort Saskatchewan, Alta., earlier this year when feed inventory from its Moa mine in Cuba ran out.

The Moa joint venture — Sherritt's source of nickel-cobalt feed — paused operations as Cuba faced fuel shortages. The trigger: the U.S. cut off Cuba's access to oil from Venezuela in January. No fuel in Cuba, no mining at Moa. No ore from Moa, no feed for the Alberta refinery.

For workers in Fort Saskatchewan, a geopolitical decision made in Washington effectively idled their plant.

What work continues during the layoffs?

Not everything stops. Sherritt says some operations will carry on through the layoff period:

• Production and sales of ammonia fertilizer
• Production and sales of sulphuric acid
• Maintenance work
• Ongoing environmental protection and safety work

That means a portion of the workforce stays on, but the core refining business — the plant's main economic engine — sits quiet until feed flows again.

Is a restart coming?

There's a concrete signal, and it's worth watching. Last month, Sherritt said it received a license from the U.S. government authorizing the purchase and delivery of fuel to its Moa mine and processing operations in Cuba.

The company described the license as the first in a series of emergency licenses it will need before it can restart operations. So one bureaucratic door has opened, but several more must open before the Cuba-to-Alberta supply chain moves again.

What does this mean for affected workers?

A 90-day temporary layoff is a different animal from a permanent cut. It preserves the employment relationship and the recall expectation, and it signals the company believes the shutdown is fixable. But 90 days is also long enough to test household finances — roughly three mortgage or rent cycles — and there's no guarantee the timeline holds, since the restart depends on further U.S. licenses and fuel actually arriving in Cuba.

For anyone tracking Canada's resource-sector labor market, this is also a case study in how sanctions policy transmits into local payrolls: a Venezuela oil cutoff in January became 280 Alberta layoff notices by November.

If the remaining licenses come through and Moa restarts on schedule, the Fort Saskatchewan refinery could be re-staffing early next year — that's the bet Sherritt is making with its "temporary" label.