Miners stop importing machinery

T

Tacrezod

Member
Slightly hysterical headline from the SMH, but an interesting article straight from the horse's mouth nevertheless;

"If everything is as wonderful as they (miners) say, why is there a slowdown in the last two months in the volume of equipment coming into the country? That's what I can't reconcile ... the real underlying story is that there is a lot of concern about just what's going on in the world. And if commodity prices fall, I don't think Australia is immune to a pretty difficult 2012 economically."

http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-business/miners-stop-importing-machinery-20120125-1qhi7.html
 
Let me tell you something from the other side.
We are winning contracts and struggling to find equipment, when a excavator, dozer, watercart, etc arrives on the wharf we try to purchase it but you can't because it's here because it's already been sold.
Newmont mining have to wait 18 months to recieve a dozer at Boddington gold.
I'd compare the drop of imported equipment to the production lines that make caterpillar, hitachi, and komatsu equipment.
That may give things a different angle.
 
I am at an underground mine and they have stuff constantly breaking down affecting longwall production, whether its the shearer, development equipment, EIMCO's... you name it. When you are working them as hard as they go, there will always be failures.
 
A banker will lend you his umbrella when its sunny yet ask for it back when its raining
 
Caterpillar outlet closed in Tassie 2 years ago.

If you are young & free & into mining related work then do some research on Mongolia.
 
i've recently met a stacker here in brisbane that works for caterpilar he said theres loads of equipment they have not sold and the inventory is getting bigger he mentioned the dollar amount of what its worth but it slipped my mind.
 
The company i work for imports drill rigs but only once we have a signed lease on them, we are now due about one a month for the 2013 period.
 
Rio are cutting expenditures EVERWHERE.
Particularly in the aluminium and australian coal sectors. Because of the high costs in aust (wages, federal resource rent tax and qld increasing royalties) and low(er) coal prices, they are even saying that the coal from usa is looking good again.
I heard that this is due to excess coal in the usa and rise of gas as alternate to coal (shale, LNG, coal seam gas) keeping the coal price down.
Africa and mongolia arent quite there yet in terms of infrastructure but aust and usa better look out for when they are.
I need 5 drill rigs to get me data but cost cutting means I can only have 2 so yes, things are tight in the coal sector. There are apparently no such cost measures in the still profitable iron ore secctor.

Hey PPSS, good to see you back.
 
A good friend had a three year software contract with Xstrata coal in Australia. It was cancelled a few weeks ago due to "cutbacks".

And I've heard of a conveyer belt supplier mention cutbacks.

The lower coal & iron ore prices are starting to hit home. IMO not long before staff cutbacks.
 
willrocks said:
A good friend had a three year software contract with Xstrata coal in Australia. It was cancelled a few weeks ago due to "cutbacks".

And I've heard of a conveyer belt supplier mention cutbacks.

The lower coal & iron ore prices are starting to hit home. IMO not long before staff cutbacks.
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Rio have. Already had a round of tetrenchments. Projects team in nsw reduced from 40 odd to 15, my section from 5 to 3, redundancies in the pits, blair athol in qld closed down. Not all decisions were wise imo. I know one guy who's redundancy was political. He has so much history and knowledge that is needed but his boss just doesn't like him
 
Business confidence will return once we have a decent government back in Canberra. Until then we will see continued reduction of investment and employment in Australia.
 
Jonesy said:
Business confidence will return once we have a decent government back in Canberra. Until then we will see continued reduction of investment and employment in Australia.
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you'd need a decent opposition for that.
 
Silverthorn said:
Jonesy said:
Business confidence will return once we have a decent government back in Canberra. Until then we will see continued reduction of investment and employment in Australia.
Click to expand...

you'd need a decent opposition for that.
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We do have a decent opposition. Just a crap opposition leader. At least the opposition is not the slave child of the ACTU. That alone makes then a decent opposition.
 
Jonesy said:
Silverthorn said:
Jonesy said:
Business confidence will return once we have a decent government back in Canberra. Until then we will see continued reduction of investment and employment in Australia.
Click to expand...

you'd need a decent opposition for that.
Click to expand...


We do have a decent opposition. Just a crap opposition leader. At least the opposition is not the slave child of the ACTU. That alone makes then a decent opposition.
Click to expand...

No they are pretty much all duds. They sold us out to business and got kicked out quicker than winkem even though the economy was still booming in those days. That and the fact they couldn't win the last election should tell how on the nose they are. They make me sick to my stomach pretty much all of them. The only half decent one was turnbull and they kicked him out of the club.
 
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