Iron ore price drops again to flirt with multi-year lows amid gloomy forecasts

Dark clouds gather over Australia's red earth riches

The Age

14 hours ago

The Age

Dark clouds gather over Australia's red earth riches

Spearing out of the deep-red Hammersley Range in Western Australia's Pilbara region is an 18-kilometre conveyer belt. It rumbles day and night on rollers transporting a steady flow of iron ore from a monster four-storey crusher at the area's newest open-cut mine. Rio Tinto's $2.4 billion Western Range iron ore mine – officially opened this month – is the latest in a long line of mega-projects that have carved up the desert here for the past 60 years, sending mountains of crushed rock to the port and onto huge bulk carriers bound for steel mills in Asia. China's voracious appetite for iron ore, the reddish dirt that's turned into steel inside giant blast furnaces, has kept the Australian economy prosperous for decades, bringing in hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue and creating the world's two most valuable miners, BHP and Rio Tinto, along the way. Loading To this day, the commodity still ranks as Australia's single biggest export earner, fetching $138 billion in the past financial year alone, accounting for up to 5 per cent of the country's gross domestic product. But demand in China is starting to cool, which is a cause of considerable concern because Chinese steelmakers are the biggest buyers of our iron ore by far. Deteriorating conditions in the Chinese property sector, which accounts for 30 per cent of its steel demand, is crunching building activity, just as US President Donald Trump's tariffs loom as another economic threat that could hinder the effectiveness of Beijing's stimulus measures. At the same time, a wave of additional iron ore from the next generation of mines in Africa and Australia is raising the risk of an oversupply, while the declining quality of Australia's iron ore output means it will be unsuitable for less-polluting steel-making practices becoming more popular in the push to avert catastrophic global warming. All of these headwinds are leading to one important question: could Australia's iron ore earnings powerhouse be finally facing the beginning of long and gradual structural decline? The risk, analysts warn, is real. The fundamentals are certainly 'less constructive' than they have been in the past, says Lachlan Shaw, a mining analyst at UBS. 'The downside case for iron ore rests on a combination of supply growth from new projects including Simandou in Guinea, Onslow and Iron Bridge in WA and recovering production in Brazil,' he says. 'This, coupled with expectations for China's steel production to ease lower over coming years, results in an outlook that would, if it comes to pass, put downward pressure on iron ore prices.' However, it's also worth remembering that the iron ore price has long defied repeated predictions it is overdue for a fall, he adds. China's steel output has probably peaked, but this is unlikely to spell disaster. Production in China is likely to plateau at 'relatively high levels' for some time, UBS says, and demand growth in the emerging steel sectors of South-East Asia, India and the Middle East could help offset weakening conditions in China. The development of projects to unleash new iron ore supplies may also come under pressure from higher costs and more costly and complicated approvals and heritage management processes. 'The collective market has a long history of over-confidence in forecasting iron ore's demise,' Shaw says. 'There are important offsets that may see iron ore trade stronger than the more bearish forecasts on the street.' The slowdown in China presents the most immediate threat to demand. But a debate has also begun intensifying among the Pilbara iron ore giants about a longer-term question: could the shift to less-polluting steel-making methods which require higher grades of iron ore than Australian mines are producing hasten their demise? 'We're going to be in the Pilbara for decades. It has got a strong future if we do the work.' Rio's head of iron ore, Simon Trott Chinese steel mills' shift from traditional blast furnaces to cleaner processes, which use electricity instead of coal and require iron ore with fewer impurities, could turn the Pilbara into a wasteland, Andrew Forrest, the billionaire chairman of Western Australia's third-largest iron ore shipper, Fortescue Metals Group, said recently. 'They are going to shut down the old-fashioned, two-century-old technology of burning sticks and logs, putting in coal, putting in iron ore, burning it all and sending up masses of pollution into the atmosphere and producing steel,' Forrest told a mining summit in Perth. 'They're looking straight into a future that may or may not include WA.' Analysts agree that the momentum in the industry towards cleaner steel-making processes makes the outlook for lower grade iron ore 'more challenged' relative to higher-grade products. To maintain demand for the Pilbara's mid- to low-grade iron ore, technical innovation would be required to secure their use as feedstocks for lower-carbon steel-making processes, they say. BHP and Rio Tinto have partnered with BlueScope Steel to build an electric iron-making furnace as part of a demonstration project at Kwinana near Perth. Forrest's Fortescue is investing heavily in a push to diversify into green hydrogen as a substitute for coal in the steel-making process, and has plans to build a commercial-scale green iron plant in the Pilbara. 'Australian industry is starting to do the work here,' says Shaw. The opportunity for Australia to shift to a green iron producer and away from an iron ore miner and shipper is 'real', he adds, but will face technical and economic challenges. 'Innovation, commitment and supportive policy settings will likely be needed in combination to realise such an enormous transition,' he says. 'They are going to shut down the old-fashioned, two-century-old technology of burning sticks and logs, putting in coal, putting in iron ore, burning it all and sending up masses of pollution into the atmosphere and producing steel.' Fortescue's Andrew Forrest While the industry is responding to growing efforts to decarbonise the steel sector, which accounts for at least 8 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, Forrest's suggestion that the Pilbara is at risk of becoming a wasteland is one that Rio Tinto's head of iron ore, Simon Trott, rejects. 'We're going to be in the Pilbara for decades,' he says. 'It has got a strong future if we do the work.' Asked to explain the progressive decline in ore quality coming out of the region, Trott says: 'You tend to start with the best bits first. That's what happened when the Pilbara got developed through the '60s, and since then, as a whole, the Pilbara has gradually declined.' Rio Tinto says its new mines, such as Western Range, will shore up growth. The Anglo-Australian mining giant also believes it has an ace up its sleeve at its Rhodes Ridge development, which is expected to be ready by the end of this decade and contains more than 6 billion tonnes of higher grade ore. 'The good news for us is that it's in front of us rather than behind us,' says Trott. Loading Rod Sims, the long-serving former chair of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, paints a more optimistic picture of the Pilbara's future. Where the industry sees a threat, he sees lucrative potential to create a green iron manufacturing hub for which, he says, Australia is 'superbly well positioned'. Now chair of the Superpower Institute, a think tank he co-founded with energy expert and economist Ross Garnaut, Sims says Australia's abundant iron ore, when coupled with world-class wind and solar resources, could power a green steel export industry potentially worth $386 billion a year by 2060. 'Green iron is the next great chapter in Australia's export story,' he says. 'As the world decarbonises, our fossil fuel exports will inevitably decline – but by using our unparalleled renewable energy resources to make green iron, we can replace those exports with high value, zero carbon products that the world will need.' One way to fulfil that vision is to use green hydrogen to replace coal in the steelmaking process, creating an emission-free product, a technology Forrest is placing big bets on. The hydrogen is sourced by splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen using electrolysis powered by fields of solar panels or wind turbines. However, the technology remains far more expensive than basic furnaces, and is not widely used yet. Loading With big challenges ahead, how Australia's mining giants position themselves for the next decade will be critical. BHP and Rio Tinto are searching for new leadership talent to steer them through. Both companies are heading into capital-intensive, construction-heavy periods with a focus on projects aimed at boosting their supplies of commodities that stand to benefit from growing global efforts to tackle global warming, such as electric battery raw material lithium, and copper, a key ingredient in electric wiring. BHP is focusing on several new and expanded copper mines, while Rio Tinto is concentrating on copper and lithium. 'Both businesses will need to pivot to a more technical, execution-driven capability within senior leadership ranks,' says Shaw. 'It will come down to the right balance of senior leaders being able to surround themselves with the technical skills and talent they need and can trust, versus potential new leadership with stronger technical experience.' Rio Tinto chair Dominic Barton surprised investors with his disclosure three weeks ago that chief executive Jakob Stausholm will leave later this year. The miner didn't name a successor, prompting speculation the transition was hasty and a result of friction between Stausholm and Barton. Stausholm has rejected talk of a rift. There is 'no disalignment', he told reporters at Western Range last week. 'We have completely agreed between ourselves that it is the right time to look for succession, and I will be stepping down. I am very happy and proud about my what will be five years as CEO of this company,' he said. Any incoming boss at Rio Tinto will need to 'double down to deliver greater operational performance', Barton said, intimating the company is focusing on candidates for the top job with deep mining experience. Change at the top of resource giant BHP has been smoother. Former National Australia Bank chief executive Ross McEwan seamlessly took over as company chair from eight-year veteran Ken MacKenzie in March, although there are now suggestions the Big Australian is looking to replace CEO Mike Henry but no official acknowledgement. For Shanghai-based Baowu, Rio Tinto's partner in Western Range, there is no equivocation on the Pilbara's future. The world's largest steel producer, wholly owned by the Chinese government, is firmly rooted in the region's red earth, owning 46 per cent of the joint venture since 2002. Its chairman, Hu Wangming, describes it almost poetically as a place 'where partnership and friendship flourish, like the ore veins of the Western Range: strong, deep and everlasting'.

Sydney Morning Herald

14 hours ago

Sydney Morning Herald

Dark clouds gather over Australia's red earth riches

Spearing out of the deep-red Hammersley Range in Western Australia's Pilbara region is an 18-kilometre conveyer belt. It rumbles day and night on rollers transporting a steady flow of iron ore from a monster four-storey crusher at the area's newest open-cut mine. Rio Tinto's $2.4 billion Western Range iron ore mine – officially opened this month – is the latest in a long line of mega-projects that have carved up the desert here for the past 60 years, sending mountains of crushed rock to the port and onto huge bulk carriers bound for steel mills in Asia. China's voracious appetite for iron ore, the reddish dirt that's turned into steel inside giant blast furnaces, has kept the Australian economy prosperous for decades, bringing in hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue and creating the world's two most valuable miners, BHP and Rio Tinto, along the way. Loading To this day, the commodity still ranks as Australia's single biggest export earner, fetching $138 billion in the past financial year alone, accounting for up to 5 per cent of the country's gross domestic product. But demand in China is starting to cool, which is a cause of considerable concern because Chinese steelmakers are the biggest buyers of our iron ore by far. Deteriorating conditions in the Chinese property sector, which accounts for 30 per cent of its steel demand, is crunching building activity, just as US President Donald Trump's tariffs loom as another economic threat that could hinder the effectiveness of Beijing's stimulus measures. At the same time, a wave of additional iron ore from the next generation of mines in Africa and Australia is raising the risk of an oversupply, while the declining quality of Australia's iron ore output means it will be unsuitable for less-polluting steel-making practices becoming more popular in the push to avert catastrophic global warming. All of these headwinds are leading to one important question: could Australia's iron ore earnings powerhouse be finally facing the beginning of long and gradual structural decline? The risk, analysts warn, is real. The fundamentals are certainly 'less constructive' than they have been in the past, says Lachlan Shaw, a mining analyst at UBS. 'The downside case for iron ore rests on a combination of supply growth from new projects including Simandou in Guinea, Onslow and Iron Bridge in WA and recovering production in Brazil,' he says. 'This, coupled with expectations for China's steel production to ease lower over coming years, results in an outlook that would, if it comes to pass, put downward pressure on iron ore prices.' However, it's also worth remembering that the iron ore price has long defied repeated predictions it is overdue for a fall, he adds. China's steel output has probably peaked, but this is unlikely to spell disaster. Production in China is likely to plateau at 'relatively high levels' for some time, UBS says, and demand growth in the emerging steel sectors of South-East Asia, India and the Middle East could help offset weakening conditions in China. The development of projects to unleash new iron ore supplies may also come under pressure from higher costs and more costly and complicated approvals and heritage management processes. 'The collective market has a long history of over-confidence in forecasting iron ore's demise,' Shaw says. 'There are important offsets that may see iron ore trade stronger than the more bearish forecasts on the street.' The slowdown in China presents the most immediate threat to demand. But a debate has also begun intensifying among the Pilbara iron ore giants about a longer-term question: could the shift to less-polluting steel-making methods which require higher grades of iron ore than Australian mines are producing hasten their demise? 'We're going to be in the Pilbara for decades. It has got a strong future if we do the work.' Rio's head of iron ore, Simon Trott Chinese steel mills' shift from traditional blast furnaces to cleaner processes, which use electricity instead of coal and require iron ore with fewer impurities, could turn the Pilbara into a wasteland, Andrew Forrest, the billionaire chairman of Western Australia's third-largest iron ore shipper, Fortescue Metals Group, said recently. 'They are going to shut down the old-fashioned, two-century-old technology of burning sticks and logs, putting in coal, putting in iron ore, burning it all and sending up masses of pollution into the atmosphere and producing steel,' Forrest told a mining summit in Perth. 'They're looking straight into a future that may or may not include WA.' Analysts agree that the momentum in the industry towards cleaner steel-making processes makes the outlook for lower grade iron ore 'more challenged' relative to higher-grade products. To maintain demand for the Pilbara's mid- to low-grade iron ore, technical innovation would be required to secure their use as feedstocks for lower-carbon steel-making processes, they say. BHP and Rio Tinto have partnered with BlueScope Steel to build an electric iron-making furnace as part of a demonstration project at Kwinana near Perth. Forrest's Fortescue is investing heavily in a push to diversify into green hydrogen as a substitute for coal in the steel-making process, and has plans to build a commercial-scale green iron plant in the Pilbara. 'Australian industry is starting to do the work here,' says Shaw. The opportunity for Australia to shift to a green iron producer and away from an iron ore miner and shipper is 'real', he adds, but will face technical and economic challenges. 'Innovation, commitment and supportive policy settings will likely be needed in combination to realise such an enormous transition,' he says. 'They are going to shut down the old-fashioned, two-century-old technology of burning sticks and logs, putting in coal, putting in iron ore, burning it all and sending up masses of pollution into the atmosphere and producing steel.' Fortescue's Andrew Forrest While the industry is responding to growing efforts to decarbonise the steel sector, which accounts for at least 8 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, Forrest's suggestion that the Pilbara is at risk of becoming a wasteland is one that Rio Tinto's head of iron ore, Simon Trott, rejects. 'We're going to be in the Pilbara for decades,' he says. 'It has got a strong future if we do the work.' Asked to explain the progressive decline in ore quality coming out of the region, Trott says: 'You tend to start with the best bits first. That's what happened when the Pilbara got developed through the '60s, and since then, as a whole, the Pilbara has gradually declined.' Rio Tinto says its new mines, such as Western Range, will shore up growth. The Anglo-Australian mining giant also believes it has an ace up its sleeve at its Rhodes Ridge development, which is expected to be ready by the end of this decade and contains more than 6 billion tonnes of higher grade ore. 'The good news for us is that it's in front of us rather than behind us,' says Trott. Loading Rod Sims, the long-serving former chair of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, paints a more optimistic picture of the Pilbara's future. Where the industry sees a threat, he sees lucrative potential to create a green iron manufacturing hub for which, he says, Australia is 'superbly well positioned'. Now chair of the Superpower Institute, a think tank he co-founded with energy expert and economist Ross Garnaut, Sims says Australia's abundant iron ore, when coupled with world-class wind and solar resources, could power a green steel export industry potentially worth $386 billion a year by 2060. 'Green iron is the next great chapter in Australia's export story,' he says. 'As the world decarbonises, our fossil fuel exports will inevitably decline – but by using our unparalleled renewable energy resources to make green iron, we can replace those exports with high value, zero carbon products that the world will need.' One way to fulfil that vision is to use green hydrogen to replace coal in the steelmaking process, creating an emission-free product, a technology Forrest is placing big bets on. The hydrogen is sourced by splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen using electrolysis powered by fields of solar panels or wind turbines. However, the technology remains far more expensive than basic furnaces, and is not widely used yet. Loading With big challenges ahead, how Australia's mining giants position themselves for the next decade will be critical. BHP and Rio Tinto are searching for new leadership talent to steer them through. Both companies are heading into capital-intensive, construction-heavy periods with a focus on projects aimed at boosting their supplies of commodities that stand to benefit from growing global efforts to tackle global warming, such as electric battery raw material lithium, and copper, a key ingredient in electric wiring. BHP is focusing on several new and expanded copper mines, while Rio Tinto is concentrating on copper and lithium. 'Both businesses will need to pivot to a more technical, execution-driven capability within senior leadership ranks,' says Shaw. 'It will come down to the right balance of senior leaders being able to surround themselves with the technical skills and talent they need and can trust, versus potential new leadership with stronger technical experience.' Rio Tinto chair Dominic Barton surprised investors with his disclosure three weeks ago that chief executive Jakob Stausholm will leave later this year. The miner didn't name a successor, prompting speculation the transition was hasty and a result of friction between Stausholm and Barton. Stausholm has rejected talk of a rift. There is 'no disalignment', he told reporters at Western Range last week. 'We have completely agreed between ourselves that it is the right time to look for succession, and I will be stepping down. I am very happy and proud about my what will be five years as CEO of this company,' he said. Any incoming boss at Rio Tinto will need to 'double down to deliver greater operational performance', Barton said, intimating the company is focusing on candidates for the top job with deep mining experience. Change at the top of resource giant BHP has been smoother. Former National Australia Bank chief executive Ross McEwan seamlessly took over as company chair from eight-year veteran Ken MacKenzie in March, although there are now suggestions the Big Australian is looking to replace CEO Mike Henry but no official acknowledgement. For Shanghai-based Baowu, Rio Tinto's partner in Western Range, there is no equivocation on the Pilbara's future. The world's largest steel producer, wholly owned by the Chinese government, is firmly rooted in the region's red earth, owning 46 per cent of the joint venture since 2002. Its chairman, Hu Wangming, describes it almost poetically as a place 'where partnership and friendship flourish, like the ore veins of the Western Range: strong, deep and everlasting'.

Barry FitzGerald: Magmatic adding serious value with WA gold deal

News.com.au

a day ago

News.com.au

Barry FitzGerald: Magmatic adding serious value with WA gold deal

'Garimpeiro' columnist Barry FitzGerald has covered the resources industry for 35 years. Now he's sharing the benefits of his experience with Stockhead readers. One of Garimpeiro's pet peeves is coming across a junior explorer banging away at a single project rather than leveraging off their standing costs as an ASX-listed company by adding a second project to the portfolio. That is particularly so when there has been a tectonic shift in markets like there is now, with gold racing to more than $5200 an ounce in Aussie dollars – up a staggering 44% on 2024's average. So keep the flagship project bubbling along but use the downtime between drilling campaigns to add a gold project to the company's story because the reality is that there has never been a better time to be looking for the yellow stuff. That's just what a well-known explorer for potential tier-1 epithermal/porphyry style deposits in NSW's prolific East Lachlan region, Magmatic Resources (ASX:MAG), has done via the acquisition of the Weebo project on the Yandal greenstone belt in Western Australia. The East Lachlan hunt continues, including a joint venture at the Myall copper/gold project with Andrew Forrest's Fortescue (ASX:FMG), also the company's biggest shareholder. Myall and other prospects in the East Lachlan could well deliver a big discovery in time, and there has been plenty of encouragement on that front. But for pure gold exposure at a time when the market is in a mood to reward gold discoveries handsomely, Magmatic has rolled up its sleeves and added WA gold to its story, powering up its newsflow in the process. Magmatic was trading mid-week at 4.2c a share for a market cap of $18.1 million on issued capital, increased by the share consideration component of the Weebo acquisition. It was a 3.9c stock before the Weebo pick up, so it can be said that the added element of WA gold has attracted the market's interest. But remembering the market cap is still not challenging. Given the quality of the East Lachan interests, it could be suggested that at Wednesday's share price of 4.2c, Weebo comes at this stage comes for free. Value added That's despite Weebo having all the hallmarks of becoming a quick value-add for Magmatic. Located 30km southeast of Leinster, the Weebo ground covers about 50km of the southern Yandal greenstone belt. The ground includes two near surface prospects – Ockerburry and Scone Stone – where previous drilling has yielded some nice hits by a previous owner. They stand as advanced drill prospects and there are a bunch of less advanced prospects. Magmatic has put a local exploration team in place and expects that its maiden drilling program at Weebo will kick off in the September quarter. It is exciting stuff for a company with an $18.1m market cap. What makes Weebo particularly exciting is its location, smack bang in the middle of five gold mines with treatment plants – Vault Minerals' (ASX:VAU) Darlot, Gold Fields' Agnew-Lawlers, Bellevue Gold's (ASX:BGL) namesake operation, Northern Star Resources' (ASX:NST) Bronzewing and Northern Star's Thunderbox. While the hope would be that exploration success at Weebo delivers a standalone operation, the proximity of the regional treatment capacity lends itself to toll treatment opportunities, joint venture development and/or outright sale of ounces that Magmatic pulls together in a mineral resource estimate. Ounces in the ground In a $5200/oz environment ounces-in-the-ground are commanding a high value when there is a clear pathway to the ounces being whacked through a standalone treatment plant or one owned by a third party. By way of example only, Northern Star last year paid $12.5 million for the 177,000 inferred resource ($70 an ounce) at the Hobbes gold project – owned 80% by Solstice Minerals (ASX:SLS) and 20% by a private minority – to feed through its Carosue Dam operation. The year before NST paid Strickland Metals (ASX:STK) $61m in cash and shares for the 346,000oz Millrose deposit near the Jundee gold mine ($176/oz). Gold prices have moved substantially higher still, so smallish deposits have become even more valuable. Where Weebo ends up in terms of its scale remains to be seen. But it certainly delivers exploration excitement when the gold market is running hot. And who knows? That hunt for a tier-1 discovery in NSW could well come up trumps. That's particularly so when Mt York gets juiced up by the additional ounces expected to come from the big exploration push now underway. The views, information, or opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the columnist and do not represent the views of Stockhead. Stockhead does not provide, endorse or otherwise assume responsibility for any financial product advice contained in this article. At Stockhead, we tell it like it is. While Magmatic Resources is a Stockhead advertiser, it did not sponsor this article.

Iron ore price drops again to flirt with multi-year lows amid gloomy forecasts

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Dark clouds gather over Australia's red earth riches

Dark clouds gather over Australia's red earth riches

Barry FitzGerald: Magmatic adding serious value with WA gold deal

Iron ore price drops again to flirt with multi-year lows amid gloomy forecasts

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Dark clouds gather over Australia's red earth riches

Dark clouds gather over Australia's red earth riches

Barry FitzGerald: Magmatic adding serious value with WA gold deal

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