GE mining boss sees difficult year ahead
GE’s most senior executive for mining is blaming slower Chinese growth, weaker commodities prices and shale gas-induced pressures on coal in the US as the key factors that will depress sales this year, but insists the long-term prospects are still exciting, according to the Australian Financial Review.
Resources decline fuels $25B slide
The dwindling value of resource projects looks set to leave a gaping hole in national investment as rising costs stifle existing projects and low interest rates fail to prompt new ones, according to The Australian.
The value investments committed or already under construction fell $25 billion in the final three months of 2013, the biggest quarterly fall in definite projects since 2008.
State's fraccing go-ahead to stand
The West Australian government has rejected calls by the Australian Conservation Foundation for a Victorian-style moratorium on hydraulic fracturing, or fraccing, in the Kimberley region, which holds some of the biggest reserves of unconventional gas in the world, according to The Australian.
The ACF, a moderate green group, yesterday called for the ban as it urged WA Environment Minister Albert Jacob to direct the state’s environment watchdog to examine a proposal by listed explorer Buru Energy to begin fraccing a series of wells in the Kimberley within months.
