Category: Mines and Quarry

报告显示矿产活动驱动着工业投资

市场情报公司 Timetric 建筑情报中心 （Timetric Construction Intelligence Center）近日的一份报告揭示了亚洲工业板块项目超过1万亿美元的投资计划。领头的是印度，该国制定了价值4110亿美元的计划。

该报告同时发现，中国和印度尼西亚也有巨大的投资水平，两国分别有2000亿美元和1240亿美元的开发计划。

其它新兴国家，如越南等，也有正面的结果。越南制定了价值达560亿美元的工业建筑项目。

采矿业是澳大利亚的核心聚焦，因为金属和物料加工工厂带来了价值将近370亿美元的工程，为该板块价值的一半。

该研究小组的结果表明，所研究的15个国家所进行的1.08万亿美元的工业项目，金属和物料生产工厂板块占主导地位，该板块拥有价值4460亿美元的项目，紧随其后的是制造工厂板块，拥有价值3140亿美元的项目。

在该报告的清单上，价值最高的项目是价值500亿美元的越南万安经济区（Vung Ang Economic Zone）。该项目包括重要的河静（ Ha-Tinh）钢铁厂和山阳港（ Son Duong Port）。

Timetric CIC 经理 Neil Martin 称，“发达的亚太经济体倾向于在工业建筑中投资更多，而该地区工业化程度较低的国家在工业建筑方面显示出最大增长，尽管起点较低。

“我们估计到2019年，像越南、印尼、蒙古和土库曼斯坦等国的增长预计将有6%或更高。这已经在采矿、加工或制造业方面的投资中显现出来了。这些领域的投资将推动这些发展中的经济体的发展。”

The Northern Territory’s last operating iron ore mine has ground to a halt, wrapping up what has been a disastrous six months for the sector in the Top End.

After months of speculation, the Frances Creek mine near Pine Creek has now stopped production, joining Sherwin Iron and Western Desert Resources which went into voluntary administration last year.

Terry O’Connor, from the Darwin Port Corporation, said the collapse of the Territory’s iron ore sector was a big blow for the port.

“The iron ore trade was our biggest customer in terms of return to the port and its [collapse, has left] a significant hole in our budget,” he said.

“Our understanding, at this stage, is that the plan is to finish up the operation at Frances Creek, [but] they still believe there’s a chance they may recommence [mining] at some stage in 12 months or so.

“[However] our feeling is, it’ll take a significant amount of time to remobilise and get everything to happen, so we certainly don’t expect to see any new exports of iron ore out of Frances Creek before this time next year or even 18 months at the earliest.

“We’d like to think they’ll come back. But it’s demand driven, we understand that. There’s always peaks and troughs and this is a trough at the moment.”

AUDIO: Terry O’Connor says the collapse of NT iron ore projects will leave a hole in the Darwin Port’s budget (ABC Rural)
Mr O’Connor said the last loads of iron ore from Frances Creek were delivered to the port in late December.

He said there were about 250,000 tonnes stockpiled at the port, to be exported over the coming months.

From a workforce of over 300, it is understood there are now just 20 workers left at the Frances Creek project and that number will be reduced again in the coming weeks.

The plunging iron ore price, which sparked problems for all three Top End iron mines, has dipped below $US65 a tonne, its lowest point since 2009.

Mining town of Pine Creek suffering

Ray Wooldridge has lived in the mining town of Pine Creek since 1991 and has seen plenty of ups and downs.

He said the mothballing of Territory Iron’s Frances Creek project has hit the town hard.

“If you take a workforce of 300 people out of a town of about 600, it has a dramatic effect,” he said.

“Most of the people [who worked at the mine] have gone, there’s been fire sales and those who had housing or were renting have sold up and moved on.

“There’s quite a few empty houses in town now.”

The opening hours of many businesses in Pine Creek have been reduced and one of the licensed premises has decided to close for the wet season because there are so few people in town.

ABC Rural visited one bar at 6 o’clock on a Saturday, which was serving eight patrons.

“It’s getting very, very quiet” said the barmaid.

AUDIO: Ray Wooldridge from Pine Creek says the town is doing it tough (ABC Rural)
The planned shutdown of the Frances Creek iron ore mine was first reported by ABC Rural in July 2014.

The mining company, Territory Iron, has still not offered up anyone for a comment.

Hughes Drilling has won a contract for overburden drilling services at BHP’s Mt Arthur coal mine.

The contract is only a short term agreement.

It will run C-750 REICHdrill rigs on site.

This win comes just a day after Hughes won a similar contract for overburden removal at Glencore’s Collinsville coal mine.

Citic has been forced to writedown the value of its Sino Iron project in the Pilbara by $1.8 billion due the falling price of iron ore.

The Chinese company said it expected its February financial results to include an after-tax asset impairment of between $US1.4 billion to $US1.8 billion.

It said the decision was made after considering the current and predicted price of iron ore.

“A key component for consideration is the current and forecasted price of iron ore,” Citic said.

Citic only has two production lines out of six up and running at the $10 billion mine.

The company said two more units would start work later this year, with the rest set for commissioning in 2016.

The mine has been in production for just over a year, and has exported 2.4 million tonnes of iron ore.

It is the first time a Chinese-owned mining company has shipped iron ore products from WA to China.

The project ran into a spate of delays and cost blow-outs during the commissioning phase.

Legal disputes with billionaire Clive Palmer over royalty payments have also hampered the development and driven up costs.

The value of iron ore has nearly halved since this time last year, and analysts predict there is more pain to come as the three majors – BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto, and Vale- ramp up production that will push more supply into the market.

Last week Macquarie Group joined the list of major banks that have their iron ore price forecasts.

The bank said it expects iron ore prices to average $US68 a tonne in 2015 and $US65 a tonne in 2016.

A joint venture between Australia’s two largest brick suppliers will proceed after getting the green light from the consumer watchdog.

Boral and CSR’s proposal to combine their east coast brick operations in a joint venture was first announced in April 2014. The joint venture will be 60 per cent owned by CSR and 40 per cent owned by Boral and aims to address the “sustained structural downward trend” that the Australian brick manufacturers have been experiencing over the past three decades.

In October, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) released a statement of issues listing a number of competition concerns that could potentially arise from the creation of the joint venture. However, the consumer watchdog has now announced it will not oppose the transaction.

“Critical to the ACCC’s decision was the assessment that Boral would be unlikely to remain in clay brick manufacturing in eastern Australia if the joint venture does not proceed,” ACCC chairman Rod Sims explained. “Without this conclusion, the proposal raised considerable competition concerns.”

Although initially sceptical, Sims said further extensive inquiries and reviews of the companies’ business records had led the ACCC to conclude that there was “sufficient evidence to support the claims that Boral would exit brick manufacturing on the east coast and that, on balance, the ACCC should not oppose the joint venture”.

Boral CEO and managing director Mike Kane said the decision was good news for customers, employees and shareholders. “With Australian brick manufacturing being challenged as a result of a reduction in brick usage and high input costs, the joint venture will allow us to drive efficiencies across the combined network of operations, creating a more sustainable business,” he stated.

“This joint venture is about retaining manufacturing in Australia and maintaining clay bricks as a choice for consumers,” CSR CEO and managing director Rob Sindel added. “It will strengthen opportunities for employees and ensure that customers benefit from a strong supplier in the highly competitive cladding market in Australia.”

The formation of the joint venture is expected to result in a combined revenue of $230 million and initial overhead savings of $7 million to $10 million per annum. The integration of the businesses is expected to reach completion within the first half of 2015.

Boral sells landfill business, relocates quarry operation

In other Boral news, the building materials supplier has entered into an agreement to sell its Western Landfill business in Melbourne to Transpacific Industries for an upfront payment of $150 million as well as an additional $15 million for site preparation work. Boral will also receive earnings from Transpacific in the form of fixed payments and volume-based royalties for the life of the landfill.

The recently sold landfill business is co-located with Boral’s asphalt, concrete and related operations and its Deer Park Quarry at a 1150ha site in Ravenhall, Melbourne. After operating Deer Park Quarry for 50 years in the southern section of the Ravenhall site since the quarry’s inception in 1965, Boral is now preparing to shift the operation into the northern section of the site.

Deer Park Quarry has an expected life of between 40 to 50 years and provides between two and three million tonnes of aggregate per year. According to Boral, moving the quarrying operation into the new section will ensure its ability to continue supplying hard rock aggregate for Melbourne’s building and construction industries into the next decade.

The preparation work will involve the replacement of the existing processing plant, with construction expected to begin in 2016 and operations to commence in the following year.

PowerMax PLUS drag rope

WireCo WorldGroup has launched a new range of dragline ropes designed for increased service life in tough mining operations.
WireCo’s new PowerMax PLUS wire rope can increase service life by up to 110%, helping to minimise interruptions and downtime, which can otherwise be costly to any mining operation. The increased service life of the drag ropes translates into a lower overall cost of ownership.
The new PowerMax PLUS increases time intervals between resockets and end-for-ends, which are typical preventative maintenance procedures for draglines.
Designed by WireCo’s research and development engineers, PowerMax PLUS features new wire technology for increased wire toughness that improves abrasion resistance as well as plastic enhancement that protects the rope core from material intrusion and fatigue.
The PowerMax PLUS has been tested extensively in field trials at coal mines in Wyoming, Texas and South Africa, with results showing the drag rope has lasted more than twice as long as previous drag ropes, helping to increase the time between rope replacements.
PowerMax PLUS is part of Union’s PowerMax PLUS family of drag ropes, which also includes PowerMax PFV PLUS, and PowerMax MD PLUS.

In a two-part retrospective, we look back the mining sector in 2014. First we start with the fate of the top 100 miners – some ugly stuff here – but then turn to some more positive and perhaps underappreciated developments.

It wasn’t a good year to be a big miner. Ranking the top 100 mining companies by market cap near year end and tabulating their 52-week share price performance tells the ugly tale (see below). BHP Billiton, still the world’s largest company, shed an astounding $31 billion or 27% of its market cap.

The next seven names at the top were all losers. Rio Tinto and Glencore’s share prices were off by about eight percent; Vale’s dropped 41%; Anglo American’s was down 10%; Norilsk’s was down seven percent; Freeport’s shareprice slumped 37%; and Southern Copper ended close to, but not quite, the even mark.

In looking back on 2014, it’s not hard to account for the share price pain of the top miners. Last year was abysmal for iron ore, oil and coal prices – chief commodities for many of the diversifieds. Meantime, investor sentiment toward the miners and their prospects seemed to reach new lows. In the past couple years, there was a great deal of shuffling in mining management reflecting shareholder unhappiness with business plans, share price returns, thin cash flow and capital expenditure blow outs.

The cratering iron ore price, especially, caught many in the market off guard. Though a decline in iron ore was bound to come, BMO mining analyst Tony Robson notes in an email, “most of us were thinking late 2014 or 2015, not early/mid 2014.”

And he, as others, expected a “steady decline not a savage collapse”. An unprecedented gulf between supply (growing) and demand (slowing) emerged in 2014, one that is by many accounts here to stay.

Some analysts and mining management lambaste the diversifieds for angling to maintain market share through mine expansion. Ivan Glasenberg – chief executive of Glencore – has cut into BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto for their strategy to grow amid an iron ore glut as being ill conceived and bad for business. Likewise, analyst John Tumazos, of John Tumazos Very Independent Research, derides the business strategy.“The iron ore companies are uniquely delusional,” Tumazos says.

He points to clear signs that Chinese steel demand, which dominates iron ore use, is set to be lacklustre relative to supply growth for years to come. But “the guys that own 400 tonne trucks just don’t want to admit it”.Looking beyond iron ore, it was equally tough for some other mining sectors. The major gold miners are well off over the year, especially Barrick. The top gold miner, by production, shed some 30% over the year. Goldcorp, the top gold miner by market cap, was also in negative territory – just. And it was a similar fate for many of the other large gold miners. Newmont was down near 15%. Polyus lost five percent. And so on. If the price of gold wasn’t obliterated in 2014 as in 2013, it muddled along for much of the year. This, combined with investors sceptical of growth plans by the major gold miners, undercut the gold miners.

In uranium – where prices were weak until a recent bump up – it was much the same. Cameco, the leading uranium miner was down 15%.

The legacy of the Fukushima disaster in Japan lingers. As David Talbot, a Dundee Capital Markets analyst, notes, it will likely take a return of Japan reactors to turn the market around. “Japanese restarts will likely be largest issue,” he says.

“Getting Japan back into operation is likely to be a strongly psychological driver – if not necessarily about real demand.”

Goonyella Riverside is a large open cut coking coal mine in the Bowen Basin. It is one of many coal mines in Central Queensland and is located at Moranbah about 30 km north of the townshop.

Shovel and dragline details on Goonyella.

Goonyella Riverside Mine Expansion (part of the gazetted Bowen Basin Coal Growth Project) was updated on 16 June 2014 here.

Australia’s manufacturing sector ended the year in contraction, according to the Australian Industry Group’s monthly Performance of Manufacturing Index survey.
The Ai Group’s PMI was down 3.2 points overall for the month to 46.9, meaning it slipped back into negative territory after November’s marginally expansionary result.
Any result under 50 in the PMI indicates contraction, and above it, expansion.
“We would have hoped to have seen a stronger Australian PMI in the lead-up to Christmas, but the finding is consistent with other publicly released data,” said the AiG’s chief executive, Innes Willox.
As with November, four of the eight sub-sectors tracked were in growth territory, led by Food, Beverages and Tobacco, which recorded a result of 60.4 (up 1.3 points).
Despite a falling dollar, which meanwhile hit a five-and-a-half-year low this morning, conditions remained difficult for the industry for a number of reasons. These included tight margins, with the input costs sub-index up to 70.3.
“Respondents to the Australian PMI welcomed the further depreciation in the Australian dollar, but noted that the level of the dollar continues to encourage strong import competition,” said Willox.
“Business sentiment and appetite for investment remain weak. The closure of Australian automotive assembly facilities now under way, plus the rapid decline in mining investment activity, are also weighing heavily on demand for locally made machinery inputs and components.”