A meeting to discuss a strategy to save the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter was called by the Invercargill City Council today.

The Southland Chamber of Commerce told the meeting a closure would see thousands of people leave the region.

Chamber chief executive Richard Hay says a closure "would have a real impact on the infrastructure, on the products and services that existing businesses are doing".

"Some of those businesses won't last through this."

Smelter expert Tom Campbell has had top jobs with Comalco and with Rio Tinto in Canada. He signed the new electricity contract as manager of Tiwai in 2006, but understands the need to renegotiate given the huge change in world conditions.

"So I know it's a genuine issue, and the conspiracy theorists who talk about it being linked to the partial privatisation are frankly just wrong," he says.

And he says commentators who claim the smelter's nearing the end of its useful life are dead wrong.

"It's very highly productive, produces the highest purity aluminium in the world. From a technology perspective, there is absolutely no reason why the smelter could not continue for decades."

At the meeting councillors signed off on a nationwide media campaign to put Southland's side of the story.

Mayor Tim Shadbolt claims Meridian made a $200 million profit last year selling power to Tiwai and wants the Government to put pressure on the SOE.

"When you see the huge profits that they're making, and compare it to their main customer and the huge losses they're making, surely they can find some compromise."

The council is hoping to meet with executives from Pacific Aluminium next week, when they make a flying visit to Southland.