Roaming through the latest RBA chart-pack pdf I found this on pdf page 18/35.
Interesting to see charted declines for NSW & Vic as WA booms and is now on par with Qld when populations are 2.68Million for WA and 5.22Million for Qld – !!! And look at agriculture – serial underperformer.
WA iron ore and Q’ld coking coal keep the Aus cities alive with money. (Not that the geographical locations of these geological deposits are down to the old colonial maps).
For the record here, so people cannot say this information wasn’t available, the prices now being paid for high quality thermal coal from NSW (mostly the New England area) and high quality coking coal from Q’ld (mostly the central Bowen Basin) are even beyond Through The Looking Glass with Alice. Not kidding … About 50 years in the mining industry and these current prices have never even been vaguely approached, not even relative to *any* earlier boom. A genuine use of the word “unprecedented”.
I am amazed today to see steaming coal jumped to US$330 overnight. I usually keep an eye on –
markets.businessinsider.com/commodities
every day and in early morning today I first saw 290 which was stunning enough then 300 and later 330 which seems to be the close. I am wondering why the huge move right now and I did not find any media commenting or explaining. If anybody comes across commentary please post the url. I can not help pondering the Ukraine war could be a factor. We knew last year that China reached a limit pulling coal from their domestic mines which caused a similar spike at the end of last Sep. I have seen where Indonesia has curbed exports of their low grade coal. I am aware of the huge Donets coalfield in eastern Ukraine which has been in the pro-Russian separatist zone from 2014. I assume they have been exporting into Russia. But surely Russia has ample coal without Donets?
Us mining folk always love to brag about how we are the backbone of this nation, but it falls on Green deaf ears.
The decline in Manufacturing and to a lesser extent, Agriculture, is a worry. Thanks for the post, Warwick.