Give the contract to the Chinese

The latest proposed Australian Government plan for high speed rail between Sydney and Melbourne via Canberra (and including up to Brisbane) was released for discussion on ~10 April 2013 at an expected cost of $114bn with the first leg (to Canberra ready by 2030) and completion by 2053. Involving 144km of tunnels of which 67km of tunnel would be through Sydney.

Symposium's Broken Hill 2013 Conference

Following the Sydney RIU Conference we again attended Symposium's resource conference in Broken Hill. Though like most recent resource conferences attendance was lower than last year, the Symposium Conference still managed to achieve its "buzz" of delegates discussing aspects of companies in booths and its renowned camel races.

Don't underestimate China's Demand

It's almost as if the market wants China's growth to fail, jumping on any signs of weakness and knocking down commodity prices. It seems to pounce on HSBC's pmi (purchasing managers index) forecasts which have been shown to be wildly inaccurate by up to 2 points as in the June 2013 figures showing slowing down at 48.2 whereas the actual figure when later released was over 50 (50.1, seen as growth).

Innovatively Cutting Costs

The fall in the gold price has caused gold producers to focus on cutting costs, in exploration, corporate, staff, and anything else. However, it has also resulted in a few innovations that we/ERA have not seen before, most of which we saw in our August 2013 visit to Silver Lake's operations, such as LNG power, contractor vending machines and a mini de-sal(ination) plant as shown in Figure.

The Supercycle is not over yet !

Or at least that was the comment made by at least 3 of the Chinese presenters in the commodity sessions spread over 4 days of the China Mining 2013 Conference held in Tianjin in early November 2013.