THE Dampier Port Authority in West Australia has said that it is encouraged by the outlook for iron ore shipments over the next few months. This was despite a recent move by major user Rio Tinto to cut back production of the steel-making ingredient, authority chief executive officer Steve Lewis said yesterday.
"I'm quietly optimistic -- certainly looking ahead to the forward arrivals of vessels here, it looks pretty healthy," he said.
Dampier has four vessels in port and is "nearly as busy as we normally would be", following the resolution of credit concerns for Western Australia's iron ore shippers. Shipping is returning to normal, following the "hysteria" of October-November in which some vessels struggled to get credit because of the global financial crisis, Mr Lewis said.
Rio Tinto, Australia's biggest iron ore exporter, turned away "20 or so" vessels from Dampier in that period because the ships did not have acceptable letters of credit, Mr Lewis said.
"We're not seeing that now. Towards late November and early December, you started to see some of the hysteria go out of the shipping side of the world," he said.
In November, Rio revised down its estimate of iron ore shipments from the Pilbara in 2008 to 170-175 million tonnes from previous guidance of 190-195Mt. Rio Tinto said it would also reduce its Pilbara production by 10 per cent. Even if Rio's production did fall 10 per cent, Dampier expected iron ore exports in the fiscal year to June 30to exceed the 112Mt of the previous 12 months.
Dampier's optimism is the latest encouragement for Australia's iron ore miners, badly affected by the drop in Chinese demand last year.
At Port Hedland, the Pilbara's other major iron ore port, BHP Billiton shipped 10.6Mt of iron ore in December, up from 10.1Mt in November, the Port Hedland Port Authority said. BHP, Australia's second-biggest iron ore exporter, has said it does not plan to scale back its Pilbara production, with any tonnes surplus to contract requirements to be sold into the spot market. But BHP's December exports were still 13 per cent down on the June record of 12.26Mt, shipped during the peak of the iron ore boom.
The latest Port Hedland statistics also show a strong recovery in export volumes for Fortescue Metals Group following a temporary port closure in November to carry out expansion work. Fortescue's December shipments of 2.7Mt were up 50 per cent on the November figure of 1.8Mt, and bettered the previous record July shipments of 2.5Mt.
SourcE: The Australian
No comments:
Post a Comment