New Rio Tinto CEO plays down expansion expectations

Rio Tinto's incoming chief executive Jean-Sebastien Jacques has put paid to suggestions his appointment represents a shift to expansion at the mining giant, after a series of ill-fated acquisitions and the worst commodities rout in decades resulted in three years of aggressive cost cutting, according to the Australian Financial Review.

Jacques, who was anointed as Rio's next chief executive on Friday and will replace incumbent Sam Walsh in July, has been in charge of the London-based miner's copper and coal division, where he caught the board's eye by selling $US1.8 billion in assets and generating cost reductions of almost $US2 billion.

Australian takeover drags Peabody near bankruptcy

A debt-fuelled $4.9 billion buyout of Australia's Macarthur Coal at the peak of the commodities boom five years ago has stretched the world's largest private sector coal company, Peabody Energy, to the brink of bankruptcy, according to the Australian Financial Review.

Coal industry experts said the top-of-the-market acquisition of Macarthur in 2011 was the key factor behind Peabody drowning in $US6.3 billion of debt that it cannot afford to repay.

Coal to gain ground as iron ore exports to China slip

There's good news for farmers, gas producers and even coal miners and bad news for iron ore producers in a new paper that projects changes in the export mix as China moves from investment to consumption-led growth, according to the Australian Financial Review.

Iron ore sales to China are set to fall as a share of total two-way trade, while natural gas, food and even coal exports will become more important, the paper, China's Evolving Demand for Commodities, finds.