The global mining world looks quite different today than it did a
year ago. This is of course also true for the whole business
world, however, we saw mining initially buck this trend. At the
moment we seem to have rapidly moved to a state where the
industry is working at least on two levels – those with long life,
low cost, existing operations and those that don’t.
It was with this backdrop that we recently released our flagship global
publication, “Mine* – As good as it gets?” This document created significant
global media interest, particularly around whether PwC were suggesting the
end of the mining boom was nigh. This was not the case, as detailed further in
our first article.
As you will note from our first article, the most significant industry issue around
the world is cost control. This is the focus of the Performance Improvement
Corner, covered in the second article. It is interesting to observe the
comments of my consulting experts as to how they see the significant
deterioration of the quality of mine effectiveness & efficiency. The hard earned
gains in the 1990’s have been diluted over the last 5 years in the rush to
maximise quantity.
This edition of Global Mine* Bulletin has a strong Australia focus with the
country focus talking about the proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme
which will be a major challenge to the mining sector. We also take a look at
“Aussie Mine”, a summary of the mid tier and junior Australian mining industry
which was released in June. This was the third of the trilogy; following Junior
mine publications covering Toronto and the London AIM market. As with the
other publications, 2007 was a wonderful year, however, there can be little
doubt that 2008 will be far more testing.
I trust you will find this edition informative and useful, please feel free to pass
on any thoughts you might have for future editions to me.
Tim Goldsmith
Global Mining Leader
