Category: Features

By Rachel Dally-Watkins 18 May, 2015 WITH a theme of optimising performance and maximising productivity, the upcoming Iron Ore 2015 conference and exhibition is particularly timely. The iron ore price has halved in the past year as a result of increased supply and falling Chinese demand, dropping below US$50 per tonne (for the first time in a decade) in early April before a slight upswing taking it closer to US$60/t by May. Iron Ore 2015 chair and CSIRO Mineral Resources Flagship portfolio leader – carbon steel Dr Ralph Holmes said given the hard times being experienced by the industry, the conference’s 2015 theme made a lot sense, as companies looked to reduce costs and improve efficiency. “The theme of the…

SERVICE providers across Australia are re-evaluating their business strategies as traditional sources of income in iron ore and LNG continue to slide. According to project delivery major Decmil, companies that diversify, both geographically and across different market sectors, stand the best chance of withstanding tough conditions. Decmil’s half year results, released in early February, demonstrated how challenging current conditions are, as well as the benefits of active strategy adjustment. The company reported a 48 per cent increase in revenue to $389.8 million for the six months ended 31 December 2014 – although lower construction margins saw earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation and net profit after tax decline by 7.4 per cent and 4.9 per cent, respectively. Decmil chief…

By Jane Goldsmith 11 May, 2015 CANADIAN miner Crocodile Gold is ramping up production at its Australian operations, in conjunction with the rising US dollar and slowly stabilising gold price. The mid-tier miner produced 59,676oz of gold in the first quarter of 2015, marking an 11.4 per cent rise from its year-on-year results and its seventh consecutive quarter producing above its 53,000oz guidance. Crocodile has three mines in Australia – Cosmo gold in the Northern Territory, and Fosterville and Stawell in Victoria – and substantial land packages including the focal exploration project, Enhanced Big Hill at Stawell. In the company’s first quarter report, chief executive Rodney Lamond said Crocodile was well positioned to meet full-year targets. “As a result of…

April 23, 2015 Jane Goldsmith spoke with Yellow Rock Resources chief executive Vince Algar to discuss Australia’s developing vanadium market and the metal’s promising role in flow batteries and renewable energy storage. Q. What is Yellow Rock’s background story and how did your tenement package develop? A. The company listed back in 2007 as a uranium company, hence the name.  We began with a couple of assets, including one called Nowthanna Hill, which we still have. Then we also picked up a few larger leases in the Northern Territory. Between 2007 and 2010, we picked up the Gabanintha project, near Meekatharra. At the time, there was a bit of a transition from a uranium boom into the iron ore boom.…

Bronwyn Barnes is the Chamber of Minerals and Energy’s Outstanding Woman in Resources Award winner for 2015. Jane Goldsmith and Rachel Dally-Watkins spoke to Ms Barnes about her diverse executive career to date. Q. What is your educational background? In 1988, I earned a Bachelor of Arts in French and Medieval History from the University of Western Australia, and in 1992, received my Graduate Diploma of Business (Management) from Edith Cowan University. I’ve done several other awards and course throughout my career – I studied Corporate Reputations, as well as Company Law at Edith Cowan; Leadership at the Creative Leadership Centre in San Diego; and in 2012, I completed a Company Directors course at the Australian Institute of Company Directors.…

“Our approach has been to meet market demand; our history of production clearly reflects that we do not seek to push product into the market if there’s no demand.” By Mark Scott 17 April 2015 AFTER a soft few years in the mineral sands market, producer Iluka Resources is set to boost production in 2015 in a sign of confidence in renewed demand. Iluka produces two titanium dioxide feedstocks – rutile and synthetic rutile – as well as zircon from its operations in WA, South Australia, Victoria and the US. The company’s results took a hit last year amid weak demand for mineral sands and following an $86.5 million non-cash impairment charge related to plans to close its US operations…

By Jane Goldsmith April 15, 2015 AMID plunging iron ore prices, Gina Rinehart’s Roy Hill project is one of just a handful of companies still hiring on a large scale. The 55 million tonne per annum iron ore operation has employed more than 25,000 workers since beginning construction in mid-2011, and currently employs more than 7200 people from 200 contractor companies across Australia. However, despite its considerable contributions to flailing employment rates, industry analysts have questioned Roy Hill’s development timing, with the $10 billion project expected to worsen a global supply glut. Iron ore spot prices have halved across the past year, and in March, fell below US$50/t. “The timing is abominable. They’re forcing supply into a market that doesn’t…

By Mark Scott 13 April 2015 “The biggest challenge for Pilbara Cities at the moment is dispelling the myth that it’s become a ghost town and there’s tumbleweeds rolling down the streets…” IT was February 2011 when the spot price for iron ore surged to an all-time high of almost US$200 per tonne. Dozens of new mines had popped up across the iron-rich red dirt of WA’s Pilbara region, Australia’s undisputed iron ore heartland; old hands Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton were expanding their already colossal hubs, while new players Fortescue Metals Group, Atlas Iron and BC Iron were making their presence felt in the global market. The region’s population centres – Karratha, Port Hedland and Newman – were booming.…

  By Mark Scott IN a surprising result for a period that saw gold prices plummet to four-and-a-half year lows, mid-tier producer Evolution Mining delivered a record net profit in the second half of 2014. The result was driven by a massive cost-cutting push across the company’s five Queensland and WA gold mines as well as record production rates, reaching 220,444 gold equivalent ounces. Evolution’s profit soared to $43.1 million, a 22 per cent compared to the same period in 2013, based on revenue of $325 million and an all-in sustaining cash cost of $1035 per ounce. Last November the global gold price crashed to its lowest point since early 2010 – US$1142/oz – as the US Federal Reserve began to…

March 2015 JUNIOR explorer Platypus Minerals is focused on prospective copper-gold and base metals projects in the East Pilbara and Peru’s San Mateo mining district. Managing director Tom Dukovcic spoke to Jane Goldsmith about the company’s success. Q. What is your educational background? I’m a geologist, having gained my BSc (Hons) degree from the University of Melbourne. I grew up in the northern suburbs of Melbourne where my Croatian parents, brother and I settled after emigrating from the old Yugoslavia in 1969. I initially studied computer science at university, very much a ‘sunrise’ industry in 1979, and only took a few units in geology through general interest. I soon grew bored and disenchanted with computer science whereas I readily took…

By Mark Scott AT Northern Star Resource’s 2013 annual general meeting, chairman Chris Rowe told shareholders the company was on the lookout for WA acquisitions to help meet its goal of becoming a top ASX-listed gold producer. At the time, Northern Star was producing about 100,000 ounces per annum of gold from its Paulsen gold project in the Pilbara region and had a market capitalisation of $301 million, with its share price at $0.71. A year later, Mr Rowe could tell an entirely different story. The company was on track to becoming a 600,000ozpa producer; was the second biggest ASX-listed gold miner and, with a share price at $1 and rapidly rising, was the best performing ASX-200 company…