The mining boom......
 

Despite the predictions of those who want to tell us that the Australian mining boom is all but over, the Bureau of Resources Gave some interesting news today. Apparently we are up for a further 500 Billion of new projects.....

That's FIVE HUNDRED BILLION. Think about it for a second. In fact think about every second for 31 years, and you have a billion seconds. If each of those dollars was a second it would be 15,000 years ago. The last great ice age when we were just cavemen scratching on walls.

That is a shedload of investment in Australia.

To quote today's newspaper:

ALL of the investment in the mining boom to date is but a shadow of what's about to come, according to the latest update by the Bureau of Resources and Energy Economics.
The analysis identifies "advanced projects" worth a jaw-dropping $260.8 billion, as well as a second category of less-advanced projects worth $242.4 billion.


http://www.watoday.com.au/business/m...#ixzz1vsn2Gy00


Add that to that my other thread, where they are going to bring in 1700 English speaking workers for ONE project alone.....


No matter what some fools say, Australia is doing ok.

Re: The mining boom......
 

Slaphead isn't the worry for Australia with the mining boom right now is that the rest of the economy is not really going anywhere at the moment with the dollar strength sucking the life out of manufacturers in particular and Australian banks not really bothered about lending to small businesses and/or residential mortgages?

The China outlook isn't as rosy as it was and the mining boom is directly linked with Chinese growth so a Greek default is going to hit chinas main export market i.e europe and usa, slowing down china and as a result the mining sector...Basic supply and demand economics really.

Re: The mining boom......
 

p.s you look like you've got a reasonably full head of hair in that snap. Has it gone downhill since dec 09?! ;)

Re: The mining boom......
 

The photo is from 2004 - but I haven't changed much since then. Still a full head of hair.

I will put up a recent one. Commie wants to see me smiling anyway. :D

Re: The mining boom......
 

It's true that the Australian economy is adjusting to the market forces.

Let me put it this way. If you go to the Establishment Bar in Sydney you will find a bunch of bankers and stockbrokers drinking expensive beers and talking about mining. They have never been to one. Up the road there are hairdressers who haven't either. Very few Australians actually do any mining, and most of them shudder at the thought, but all of them want a nice lifestyle.

Everyone wants a slice of the booming Australia, but 99.9% of them don't ever want to go to the shithole outback where the money is coming from. it's s long way from anywhere, boring, and hard work.

What is happening is an adjustment - just like the one when the wool boom ended, and like the gold rush one. The money isn't where everyone likes living. You either get off your arse and go for the money or you take a cut in living standards..... The Australian economy isn't a charity. You have to adapt or you lose out. It's just like the closure of the ports or the steel industry in the UK. You have to move on.

As you might gather from comments on BE, most people don't even want to live in Perth. They should try some of the mining areas! Everyone wants to live in a leafy suburb of Melbourne or Sydney, sip Chardonnay, shop in the malls, and earn $180k. Sadly life isn't like that, and market forces are forcing the change. To earn the money you are going to do dirty and hard work, and you and your family are going to live in an unpleasant place. Very few have woken up to that fact yet....


I can sum it up by reporting something I wrote here on the update thread a couple of years ago:


The Price of Minerals.

Long ago I was part of a team working on a project. An army of engineers, platers, boilermakers, electricians, fabricators, welders, formers, concreters, builders and many more sweated and toiled in the outback.

Slowly a giant leviathan took shape in the Never Never.

Teams of men would labour day and night in the assembly zones, slowly constructing some strange component. Finally it would be dragged out and hauled into place, and its purpose would become apparent. Such is the nature of huge projects. Seemingly chaotic, piece by piece, hour by hour.

We lived hard. Some harder than others. Four to a motel room, caravans. I think some even lived in tents. We got drunk and partied. We were multinational band of brothers to make Henry proud.

We had a team of Maori riggers. They were a rough bunch, and yet I found them amicable. I was warned not to cross them when they had been drinking. I never did.

Early one evening I was in my $50 a night motel room. I remember I had drawings all over the bed, trying to understand something. There was a knock and two Maoris came in.

“Need your car boss”.

I had a nice car, courtesy of avis. Leather and aircon. It only moved the short distance from the motel to the site, and I often loaned it to anyone who needed a car. Most of the guys had Utes or vans.

The Maoris had never borrowed it before. I looked at their faces and saw a look for the first time. I recognise it now as shock, horror and desperation. I threw them the keys.

Minutes later I saw them put one of the Maoris into the back seat, in the manner than the police put an arrested man into a car. My first thought was he must have killed someone and they were doing a runner. He hadn’t.

His daughter had been run over in New Zealand.

They rushed him to an airport. Someone managed to get him a flight.

She was dead before he even left Australia.

The next day the Maoris didn’t work. They went off and did whatever they do when a death occurs.

The father never returned. The others changed, although I can’t explain how. The whole site did in a small way. The parties seemed less fun.

Maybe someone put a curse on the plant. It closed soon after commissioning.

I stand in the Establishment, or the Ivy, and I hear bankers and stockbrokers talk about our booming economy. About the minerals resources they are trading.

They don’t know the cost.

Re: The mining boom......
 

An awful lot can happen in a very short time that will completely change those figures and without doing any research about the body behind those stats, stats are often compiled for vested interests and to push certain agendas as i am sure you are well aware.

But whatever happens Australia has done well and will continue to do for a while to come yet from mining. What i don't understand is why everyone is so desperate to do it all at once, surely it would be better and more sustainable to have a slow and protracted resource period. They should be thinking of the next 150 years not just the next 10.

Re: The mining boom......
 

I agree but some of these projects are well down the track liedered as being at an "advanced stage".

And the 500 billion is just new projects.

In the six months ended April 30, there were 25 major projects completed in Australia at a record value of $23.6 billion, almost double the previous record value when $12.5 billion worth of projects was completed in the six months to April 2008.

The record value of completed projects was underpinned by the completion of the Pluto LNG project at a capital cost of almost $15 billion, as well as a $3.4 billion expansion of the Worsley alumina refinery.

That's around 24 Billion worth of projects completed in 6 months. 36 Billion in the last 12 months. That's completed. Not talked about. Not planned, but completed!

Considering that the world is in turmoil and recession, it's bloody incredible.

Re: The mining boom......
 

The world is in recession? C'mon Mr Facts...give us some growth figures!

Re: The mining boom......
 

So, in short, the government was right all along? They said the mining companies were full of it when they cried poor and said they would have to shelve projects due to the new MRRT.

Re: The mining boom......
 

Um, it would've been $1 trillion if it hadn't been for those commies!

Re: The mining boom......
 

But does that all stay in Australia? sure i read a fair chunk ends up overseas.

Re: The mining boom......
 

I agree the figures are vast and yes papilon in a nutshell a fair chunk of it is. It depends who you believe. Undoubtedly continued growth in China and India is essential and I read somewhere there was only a 1% increase in demand for iron ore throughout the whole of last year.

This is quite an interesting article, not sure on the posts agenda etc I've never come across it before but pause for thought as to whether its worth the cost and damage it seems to be apparently doing to the normal part of the economy, because as slaphead rightly says mining comes on the scale and speed its happening in WA comes with a huge cost:

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches...iction-economy

Re: The mining boom......
 

As you might gather from comments on BE, most people don't even want to live in Perth. They should try some of the mining areas! Everyone wants to live in a leafy suburb of Melbourne or Sydney, sip Chardonnay, shop in the malls, and earn $180k. Sadly life isn't like that, and market forces are forcing the change. To earn the money you are going to do dirty and hard work, and you and your family are going to live in an unpleasant place. Very few have woken up to that fact yet....

Good point do you think we will see places like Port headland, Tom Price and Karratha become major cities in time, presumably with the money floating around there it will become economically viable to pump in water from the ord river and create a northwestern Australian conurbation. I would have thought if australia's population is going to grow to 40 plus million then the melbournes, sydneys, Gold coasts and brisbanes of this world are going to become very different and quite possiblly considerably less desirable places to live if they're going to take all the strain...

Re: The mining boom......
 

I'm not surprised the prossies are making lots of money outside the capital cities. :rolleyes:

Re: The mining boom......
 

Profits from the mining often flow overseas, and a large chunk of thr construction and design pobsnly low overseas too.

But some of it remains here. We need to work on getting a bigger slice.

But as I mentioned, so long as australians won't go to the mountain, others will.

Re: The mining boom......
 

all the more reason why we should have mining tax.

Re: The mining boom......
 

I would prefer australia to take a greater involvement in the design, construction and operation of th mines, and to develop downstream processing, then simply grab the cash.

I had lunch the other day with a guy from my old field - business Intrlligence. He was bemoaning the lack of market opportunities. H was forever chasing the banks and finance institutions in Sydney.

I suggested that he visit the mining operations and work on things like cost analysis and profitability, maintenance Analytics etc.

He recoiled in horror. Visit th mines? Those men in hard hats and overalls? No latte meetings? No 5 star bars and hotels? So he went back to bottom feeding in a very crowded marketplace.....

The money is there. It isn't magically going to waddle from Port Hedland to Manly and climb into wallets. It needs some help....

Re: The mining boom......
 

I agree with a mining tax being used as a sovereign wealth or infrastructure fund, but I don't agree with it in its current form, which is to fund welfare payments (bribes) in order to try and buy votes in the rust-belt states of SE Australia (where all the potential Labor supporters are).

Re: The mining boom......
 

i thought the mining tax will fund the 1% decrease in small business tax rate? :confused:

Re: The mining boom......
 

No problem here with any of it heading my way - but it doesn't "buy my vote".

Re: The mining boom......
 

:frown: no you won't. I love that pic.

Re: The mining boom......
 

i just heard on the radio the govt will be depositing something in our bank accounts next year?

Re: The mining boom......
 

Awwwwww - so sweet.....

Re: The mining boom......
 

I think that idea has been canned

Re: The mining boom......
 

labor could not pass the reduction for non-small companies because liberals don't want the mining tax in the first place and the greens hate the big corporates. only the small businesses will benefit with the lower rate and tax-loss carrybacks up to $1m.

Re: The mining boom......
 

Wont go to the mountain??? it is incredibly difficult to get jobs in mining. Have never seen much of a campaign here in Victoria looking for workers. If the miners ran a campaign looking to train workers and send them to the mines from Victoria they would be swamped.

Re: The mining boom......
 

They certainly would. One thing the mining companies don't want to do is train people they just want to poach staff from their competitors with ever increasing wages.

Re: The mining boom......
 

Between 1985 and 1995 I worked around the Australian mines and mineral processing operations (and across Asia in the same areas). I was very lucky, I worked for a highly specialist company that gave me easy access to the sites.

Three things stuck out then.

Firstly it was a small(ish) community. If people didn't know you, they knew your boss, or the plant manager, or someone on the crew. it was an insiders world.

Secondly a lot of people arrived full of enthusiasm, and left just as quickly. The site were weary of guys turning up and not sticking it out, especially if the plant invested money on them. It's a tough life. Really tough, and it seems endless. It sounds great when you sit on your arse in A trendy bar in Melbourne, but when you are in a donga on a site with basic amenities and it's a Friday night, it's not so much fun.

Thirdly, the operations are quite specific. Long wall mining, Pearce Smith converters, cast houses, and furnaces, Noranda reactors, flotation tanks, hydro cyclones and dense medium separation plants, are all semi unique even to individual operations. unless you speak the speak and understand what the hell the operation does you are just another mouth to feed. If the plant wants a cast house worker they expect them to know what the hell it does.

If I wanted to work in the resources industry now, I would get some tickets under my belt. Fork lift, crane, truck, welder etc.

Then I would head to the mine area and get ANY job. Sweeping up in the local fab shop. Drink in the bars, get known, stay out of trouble, and chances are you will get a gig. Once you are in, you are in.....

Re: The mining boom......
 

Me too, in the late 1980's. People don't know how hard it is.

The Poms and Kiwis worked their arses off but most of the Aussies were lazy bludgers who whinged all the time, in my experience.

Re: The mining boom......
 

or move overseas and be flown straight in :p

Re: The mining boom......
 

Reinhart recently started buying Fairfax Media shares, Fairfax owner of papers like The Age and Sydney Morning Herald are traditionally Labour supporters.
Maybe the government got scared and are trying to sweeten her up if she promises to leave there backers alone by allowing her some cheap foreign labour????

Re: The mining boom......
 

I am a qualified medic-EMT,Experienced Road Train Driver-Licenced Dangerous Goods etc,have Tertiary Qualifications(Logistics),impeccable work history,worked in the Sonara Desert in extended time,operated all types of machinery etc etc etc............
Not qualified enough to drive an 8 Tonne truck in a straight line.
I will never be acceptable to the Australian Mining industry,might have to change my name to Xiang Chow Me :(:(:(
Yeah,labour shortage................

Re: The mining boom......
 

Sounds like JLard was not across authorizing the foreign workers.

Re: The mining boom......
 

I used to love going to the mines and working in the industry. Great people to work with and those in the company were great. What was obvious though was that the only companies making good profits were the mining companies. Costs for suppliers have shot up and many companies avoid the mining areas due to the costs. Local communities are seeing taxpayer funded resources sucked away. Doctors, nurses, teachers etc no longer have access to cheap accommodation and are leaving. The high dollar is driving my new employer to offshore work to NZ and the Phillipines. The costs of business around the mines are too high.

The project work is generating a lot of economic activity and estimates are that at least a half of the money is going overseas. The costs of the projects are tax write offs and have smashed tax revenue.

All booms end and the increasing costs and dropping commodity prices will see projects axed.

Good luck to those who can make money in the mines but for the majority of us in the cities the best thing is the tax revenue. That means lower taxes and better services.

Re: The mining boom......
 

All I have seen anyone say is that the mining 'boom' isn't helping retail, tourism, manufacturing etc. These sectors are struggling big time,

Re: The mining boom......
 

Slaphead thats damn right. Minings no job for the fainthearted or for fly by nights. Its a culture that breeds a culture. I come from a longline of coal and lead miners and steelworkers.

Its funny how times change, when I was a kid down in south wales back in the day, the teachers used to boost results by taking lads on schooltrips down the pits. The theory being the boys would work harder so they didn't have to: -

"He described how, as a boy of 14, his dad had been down the mining pit, his uncle had been down the pit, his brother had been down the pit, and of course he would go down the pit."

Re: The mining boom......
 

In fairness some of them did come to the Gong when BSL announced mass redundancies and did take up some of the guys who lost jobs.... but if they set-up a, medium term, campaign here in the Gong to recruit people, they wouldn't need anybody from China.

Re: The mining boom......
 

The reality is that most people from outside the industry don't understand is that there is not much call for unskilled people in mining. A lot of the roles are deemed unskilled because there isn't s formal training period or a particular degree, but a are still highly trained. For example, a jumbo operator won't have done a aprentership but it normally take about 7 years to train for it. A non degree qualified surveyor is classed as unskilled, but it takes about 4 years training.

I work at a very large mine with around 1500 staff on site but the number of real unskilled staff is probably only about 40 and they are in training.

So it's not a viable option to just recruit people that have been made unemployed from another industry. Nor is it just a matter of companies training staff. A lot of the very big in demand roles require university degrees such as engineers, geologists, metallurgists.

Re: The mining boom......
 

That's exactly what I meant when I wrote: unless you speak the speak and understand what the hell the operation does you are just another mouth to feed. If the plant wants a cast house worker they expect them to know what the hell it does.

Re: The mining boom......
 

Then why is there 1,700 UNSKILLED Chinese coolies on the way to Roy Hill Iron Ore Rinehart Mine?
Plus the other 1,000's of Unskilled Foreign workers in place now,why was the "Highly Skilled"457 Polish worker killed on a rigging site????,he was doing a manual labour's job when he was killed,but he was a 457 Proffesional????