Australian exports under threat as Japan trading slows
Japan registered its first current account deficit in 13 years, underscoring concerns about falling demand for Australian exports. ICAP senior economist Adam Carr said the rapid deterioration in Japan, Australia’s biggest export market, “doesn’t bode well” for Australian exports of coal, iron ore and energy.
Perdaman Industries to construct urea plant
Perdaman Chemicals and Fertiliserstoday announced plans to construct a 3.5 billion Australian dollars urea manufacturing plant at the Shotts Industrial Park in Collie, Western Australia. With construction due to commence in early 2010, the Urea plant will generate on average around 1,500 jobs during the three-year construction phase of the project and around 200 permanent jobs...." Perdaman plans to utilise environmentally friendly, best in class technologies that will transform sub-bituminous coal into urea by way of innovative and low emissions coal gasification technology,"
Coking coal prices plunge as steel mills cut their orders
Coking coal exports collapsed in January. Miners posted the weakest sales in more than four years due to a lack of demand from Japanese, Korean and European steel makers. Hard coking coal exports, dominated by the BHP Billiton Mitsubishi Alliance, fell 36.3 per cent in January compared with the previous January and 23.8 per cent compared with December, a UBS report shows. The Bureau of Statistics said the total value of coal exports fell to $4.5 billion in January, compared with $5.6 billion in December.
