本帖最后由 8080 于 23-9-2014 17:25 编辑
铁矿石掉到80以下/Per Ton
From: http://www.smh.com.au/business/m ... 0140923-10kqaw.html
'Everyone is nervous about the iron ore price', admits Vale
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/business/m ... .html#ixzz3E7Zjqj2f
Brazilian mining giant Vale has admitted it is nervous about the plunge in iron ore prices below $US80 a tonne as the Chinese government dampens hopes of aggressive policy stimulus to fuel growth.
The benchmark iron ore price for immediate delivery at the port of Tianjin in China slid 2.3 per cent to $US79.80 a tonne on Monday, the lowest price since September 17, 2009, following a 1.6 per cent fall to $US81.70 on Friday.
The sharp falls came after a short-lived rally last week that led the commodity's price higher to more than $US85 a tonne.
Vale's director of strategic planning Stephen Potter said it was always a challenge for large mining companies to work out their exposure to commodities, given structural shifts in powerful economies like China.
"Everyone is nervous about the iron ore price at the moment; are we shifting from heavy industrial (phase) to a consumer-led industrial (phase) in some classical economics professor's views on development, and does that mean China is going to be using less iron ore? Well these are always the challenges for a mining company to decide which commodities it needs to invest in," Mr Potter told a mining conference in Melbourne on Tuesday.
China will not be making any major policy adjustments due to a change in one economic indicator, Finance Minister Lou Jiwei said on Sunday.
The Chinese government is attempting some monetary stimulus; last week it cut the rate for short-term borrowing costs for banks by 20 basis points to 3.5 per cent.
Fortescue expected tough conditions
Fortescue Metals Group chief executive Nev Power said his company was continuing to reduce its cost structure and would exit 2014 as an even cheaper producer of iron ore than now.
When asked if low iron ore prices would force Fortescue to slow the pace of its debt repayments, Mr Power said the company had always expected to encounter tough conditions like this.
"We made those [debt repayment] forecasts on the basis of an iron ore price at around about $US90 per tonne," he said.
Fortescue has vowed to pay down another $US2 billion or $US2.5 billion over the next 18 months to two years, and Mr Power said on Tuesday that this financial year should see repayments of between $US1 billion to $US1.5 billion.
"We've paid $US500 million off, we expect another $US500 to a $US1 billion during this financial year, again it depends where the iron ore price goes but I think we are on track to do that," he said.
Fortescue considered selling a stake in its rail and port assets and did sell a power station during the iron ore price slump of 2012, but Mr Power indicated he was not likely to repeat those tactics any time soon.
"We review that constantly, we are always looking at those opportunities but they need to make sense for us and be on the right terms.
"We don't see any major asset sales on the agenda at this stage, certainly not (rail and port)," he said.
Mr Power said he did not expect to undertake any major round of job cuts, but noted that head-counts within mining companies were constantly changing depending on which areas were being mined.
"We have the ability to respond by reducing capex and continuing to reduce our costs and as you know our production is running ahead of where we were," he said.
Fortescue has moved down the global cost curve in recent years on the back of its new low cost Solomon development, which has taken its export capacity from 55 million tonnes per year to 155 million tonnes.
"Today we sit at number three on the global cost curve on a delivered cost to China," he said.
Mr Power also said Fortescue was delivering iron ore to China at below $US50 per tonne, but that comment, and the one about being the world's third cheapest producer, are likely to exclude corporate costs like interest.
Most analysts believe Fortescue has a break-even level closer to $US71 per tonne, once those corporate costs are taken into account.
Vale at disadvantage
Vale has traditionally sold iron ore to China at a disadvantage because it is further away from China compared to its Australian rivals.
But the Brazillian giant has recently struck a deal with a Chinese shipping company to allow extra large ships to carry its iron ore into Chinese ports under a plan that should cut unit costs through economies of scale and the use of modern, cleaner, more efficient technology.
Mr Potter said the new ships, known as Valemax, would cut Vale's production costs and were 35 per cent less carbon intensive than the cape-sized vessels traditionally used in the bulk commodity industry
"Our new generation of large ships are very important, it is probably our biggest opportunity to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in our value chain," he said.
"We do it for money as well, they are much more competitive. Brazil faces a desperate disadvantage compared to Australia being on the other side of the world from China."
Mr Potter said Vale was hoping to further improve the fleet by changing the fuel mix.
"We hope to take it further, we are hoping to convert our vessels to LNG," he said.
China growth
Andrew Michelmore is the Australian boss of Chinese miner MMG, and said the Middle Kingdom was focused on cleaning up several aspects of its growth before resuming its focus on progression.
"There's a big clean out of stuff going on at the moment. At the political level Xi Jinping is cleaning up the corruption side of it and that means people are hesitant about making decisions," he said.
"He is also driving down the bubble on private housing which everyone knows about.
"This is taking longer than he thought it would and it creates uncertainty and therefore the projections of growth are lower but it will actually come out with a more solid base to then grow."
Mr Michelmore said the Australian dollar was over-valued and a lot of foreign money would exit if it fell significantly.
Mr Michelmore said China would resume consumption of commodities over time and provide a strong market for copper and other minerals.
The copper price in particular should rebound in the second half of 2015. |
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