Tuesday, 21 Jun 2011
The Australian federal government's commodities forecaster has cut its 2011-12 coal production and export forecasts as the mining sector takes longer than expected to recover from floods earlier this year, but left its iron ore forecasts broadly unchanged.
The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences lowered its metallurgical coal export projection by 5.6% to 164 million tonnes for the year to June 30th 2012 while it lowered its iron ore export forecast by 0.6 % to 437 million tonnes.
It said “In late 2010 and early 2011, metallurgical coal production in Queensland was severely disrupted by heavy rain and flooding. Heavy floods and cyclones cost the economy AUD 12 billion this year with the mining sector bearing the brunt of this figure, the Treasury estimates. The disasters sliced an estimated 1.7 percentage points from growth, resulting in Australia's biggest economic contraction for 20 years in the first quarter.”
ABARES forecasts total iron ore production to rise to 466.7 million tonnes in 2011-12, up from 441.6 million tonnes a year earlier and sees metallurgical coal output at 172 million tonnes, up from 150 million tonnes. (sourced from smh.com.au)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment