Baby It’s Cold Outside – Suck it up!

7 Comments

1. 

   Peter

   August 8, 2012 at 11:20

   Rio Tinto earnings soar, helped by state govt subsidy … SMH:

   Resources giant Rio Tinto has beaten market expectations by reporting first-half underlying earnings of $US5.2 billion.

   While the results amount to a 34 per cent drop on a year earlier, the profit beat consensus forecasts from analysts of $US4.9 billion. Credit Suisse, for instanct, had forecast a $US4.7 billion result.

   The company’s net earnings were $US5.885 billion – also topping market forecasts of about $US5 billion.

   The company has also announced a deferred tax credit of $US1 billion relating to Australia’s mining tax.

   “We have been signalling for some time that markets would remain volatile and we have seen challenging conditions in the first half,” Rio Tinto Chief Executive Tom Albanese said.

   “Although sentiment remains negative in Europe and the US recovery is still fragile, our order books are full and we expect Chinese GDP growth to be around 8 per cent in 2012. We expect to see signs of improvements in Chinese economic activity by the end of the year.”

   Rio said it is sticking to its $US16 billion spending plans for the year, much of which is being spent on expanding the company’s mining operations in the Pilbara region of WA.

   Even so, Rio plans to cut 140 jobs with the closure of the Blair Athol Mine in central Queensland. The mine is located close to the Clermont Mine, which Rio has had under review for several weeks, and from which the company has already announced some redundancies.

   Rio’s Australian-listed shares ended trading before the earnings release. For the day, they edged up 4 cents, or 0.1 per cent, to $54.89.

   Rio’s London-based shares were trading 0.9 per cent in early trading to 3,154 pence, compared with a 0.5 per cent drop in the broader mining sector.

   Price slump

   This time last year Rio reported a net profit of $US7.6 billion and an underlying profit of $US7.8 billion. The company blamed today’s lower figure on the recent slump in iron ore prices.

   The lower iron ore prices will hurt Rio more than its bigger rival BHP Billiton, given the commodity accounts for almost 80 per cent of Rio’s revenues.

   Iron ore prices have fallen about 13 per cent over the past month and the benchmark price in China was today $US116 per tonne – well below the $US135 per tonne the bulk commodity has been fetching for most of 2012.

   Rio reports on a calendar year schedule. It will pay an interim dividend of 72.5 US cents per share, up 34 per cent on a year ago.

   The miner said cashflow from operations was $US7.8 billion in the first half, down 39 per cent on a year earlier.

   Headwinds for miners

   Rio Tinto joins major rivals Anglo-American and Xstrata in reporting earnings dented by falling prices and stubbornly high costs. Vale, the world’s largest producer of iron ore, reported its worse second quarter since 2007 last month, blaming slowing demand for the steelmaking ingredient.

   Rio chief Mr Albanese said the company is stepping up efforts to contain costs and raise productivity.

   The miner’s Oyu Tolgoi project in Mongolia is on course for its first commercial output in the first half of 2013.

   http://m.smh.com.au/business/earnings-season/rio-tinto-profit-soars-above-estimates-20120808-23u3u.html
2. 

   Shaun

   August 8, 2012 at 22:25

   Where’s this so-called subsidy I keep hearing about?

   Bulk power isn’t worth overly much, Hydro is selling it to Victoria at about 5 cents per unit in recent weeks at the margin, and about 6 cents on average.

   It’s just not worth anywhere near what Tasmanians think it somehow ought to be. Even 6c is a high (arguably too high) price by international standards.
3. 

   James

   August 8, 2012 at 23:55

   It’s all okay because we are offering you the chance to win an ipad just by estimating your power bill online!!!!

   http://www.auroraenergy.com.au/about/about-aurora/board-of-directors/
4. 

   Peter

   August 9, 2012 at 02:13

   You’re asking about subsidies, Shaun?

   (1) The big power subsidies the free-marketeers won’t talk about – Tasmanian Times 2010:

   Hydro Tasmania noted in its 2008 annual report that “the average cost of generation was significantly higher than the prices received under existing long-term contracts with major industrial customers.”

   Comalco’s Bell Bay smelter alone consumes approximately one-quarter of Tasmania’s entire electricity production, which it gets at heavily subsidised prices under a secret bulk power contract. Back in 1982 copies of the bulk power contracts and the details of the prices paid under them were leaked to The Wilderness Society. Analysis of the power prices revealed that the largest subsidies went to Comalco, even though it was least labor-intensive of the big power consumers.

   To subsidise Comalco, all other power consumers—but particularly small business customers and households—pay far higher power costs than they otherwise would.

   http://oldtt.pixelkey.biz/index.php?/weblog/article/the-big-power-subsidies-the-free-marketeers-wont-talk-about/
5. 

   Peter

   August 9, 2012 at 02:14

   Subsidies (2)

   History of Lake Pedder:
   Professor Jonathan West, in his 2009 Innovations Strategy for Tasmania report recommends the Tasmanian Government consider ending its hefty electricity subsidies to the Comalco and Temco smelters at Bell Bay and the Nyrstar zinc works in Hobart.

   His report outlines how the three ore smelters and metal works consume two-thirds of Tasmania’s annual power generation, pay less for their electricity than its cost of production and employ only 1400 people.

   The sale of the power below cost and way below value to industrial users is costing the Government up to $220 million in revenue every year.

   http://www.lakepedder.org/history/index.html
6. 

   Peter

   August 9, 2012 at 02:15

   Subsidies (3)

   Aluminium industry’s billion dollar rort: Green-Left Weekly
   Everywhere, the level of public subsidy to the aluminium smelting industry is a closely guarded secret, which is cause for suspicion, if not alarm, from the outset. When Green Left Weekly contacted the various state electricity commissions supplying Australia’s six smelters, officials were prepared only to confirm that “concession rates” were granted to the companies — but no details.

   http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/7048

   …and so on.
7. 

   Peter

   August 9, 2012 at 02:18

   Oh OK, another subsidy example:

   Aluminium smelting: the best bang for your fossil-fuel subsidy buck: Bernard Keane – Crikey

   The handouts to the aluminium smelting industry are our dirty little protectionist secret.

   Because they’re state government-level subsidies, they’ve stayed below the radar of the economic reform push for a generation, protected by secrecy and barriers to Freedom of Information laws. And there’s bipartisan protection for them, because they benefit not just foreign transnationals but the power Australian Workers Union, which even went to the trouble of copying the tactics of the big polluters and commissioned its own report on why the industry should be protected under an emissions trading scheme.

   The subsidies are a product of cheap politicking and pork-barrelling, miscued regional development policies and our traditional conviction that manufacturing jobs are “real jobs”.

   http://www.crikey.com.au/2011/03/10/aluminium-smelting-the-best-bang-for-your-fossil-fuel-subsidy-buck/