New Zealand’s Aluminium Smelter (NZAS) held a community forum at Bill Richardson Transport Museum in Invercargill on Tuesday night.
NZAS chief executive Chris Blenkiron said potential risks in the next 15 to 17 years needed to be looked at.
"As far as I know, we don’t have a government . . . so we do need to wait for that to occur and then we need to sit down and get an understanding of what their perspectives are and then look forward over the next 10 to 15 years on the energy discussion."
Mr Blenkiron said the formation of the government and policies would inform commercial discussions with power generators.
He said engagements had been very constructive with more than one generator.
"Needless to say, our focus is entirely on finding that future. We’re fighting like alleycats for this thing.
"It deserves to stay open. It’s a cracking business and a cracking site."
In case there was a closure, Mr Blenkiron said everyone was clear on a base level what a redundancy entitlement would look like.
Although, he said the company’s in-house individual development programme My Future Plan had also been put on pause because he wanted to be absolutely clear that they were "fighting for a future".
He said in the event they were unable to access that future, he gave his absolute commitment, My Future Plan would be stood up again.
