Iron Ore exports from Port Hedland up 30% in April

In April this year, iron ore shipments from Australia’s Port Hedland increased by 11.7 percent month on month and were up by 30.4 percent year on year, totaling 20.7 million metric tonnes, according to the Port Hedland Port Authority. 

According to the released information, iron ore shipments made from Port Hedland to china amounted to 14.8 metric tonnes in April, increasing by 6.3 percent compared to March and up 32.4 year on year. Japan was the second largest export destination for iron ore shipments from Port Hedland in April, with shipments totaling 2.75 million metric tonnes, up by 60.3 percent year on year and up by 19.6 percent compared to the previous month. Meanwhile, iron ore shipments made from Port Hedland to South Korea amount to 2.14 million metric tonnes in April, increasing by 30.7 percent compared to March this year and up 24.5 percent year on year. 

Port Hedland handles production from mines owned by BHP Billiton, Atlas Iron and Fortescue Metals Group in the iron ore-rich Pilbara region of Western Australia. 

Ten tips to sell your home for more

PROPERTY prices might be falling or stalling in most areas, but there are tricks of the trade that can still boost the value of your home - without the need for a major renovation or spending thousands of dollars.

Your Money asked our property experts to round up their top tips to quickly add value to a home to help make it stand out and add thousands of dollars to the price tag.

If you want to add value to your biggest asset, here are our experts’ top 10 tips to do it quickly.

1. REMOVE THE BLINKERS

You are often not the best person to pass a critical eye over your property before embarking on any changes or improvements.

In most cases, it helps to have a friend or someone independent to go through the property with a notebook and jot down everything they don’t like or think needs improvement, as well as noting the wow factors and the good points.

“Think like a buyer and take a walk through your own home. Make a list of all the things that would raise major issues,” Archicentre managing director David Hallett says.

Valuer WBP Property chief executive Greville Pabst says start your inspection from the end of the street on the other side of the road.

“Walk from across the street towards and right through your property as if you’ve never been there before. By doing this, you will notice all the small faults your eyes have got used to,” Pabst says.

It is only after this critical assessment that you can see things through new eyes.

 You might have got used to a barren front yard, overlooking neighbours and a dodgy back door, but when it comes to adding value, fixing these small things can often provide the biggest boost.

2. FIRST IMPRESSIONS

Make sure your front garden, fence and path makes a good first impression. Tidy or landscape the front yard, paint the fence and gate, and ensure the house is clearly numbered.

 Make sure the facade of the house is in good condition. This can include cleaning the windows, front porch, gutters or even hiring a water blaster to give the exterior walls, front path, fence and woodwork a professional clean.

3. PAINT TOUCH-UP

 Wash or paint the front door, put welcoming pot plants either side of the entrance, provide a coat hook, table or stool to place shopping on while you fumble for the door keys.

 Install a motion sensor front light as a safety measure and to welcome your visitors when they arrive at night.

4. QUICK REPLACEMENTS

Other easy updates include replacing old door handles on interior doors and updating light fittings in all rooms.

 These small items help give a clean, contemporary and well-cared-for impression, as well as being very practical and easier to live in the home.

5. CURTAIN CALL

Remove heavy drapes, blinds and curtains and replace them with light-filtering fabrics.

 You still get the privacy but more light is able to stream through the home.

 Alternatively, make sure all curtains and blinds do not cover any window space when they are opened fully.

 Fit skylights to bathrooms or any other areas that do not have enough natural light.

6. INTERNAL SPACE

Metropole Property managing director Michael Yardney says the impression you want people to have when they visit your property is that they would like to live there themselves.

 This means ensuring that the home is well furnished, is welcoming and comfortable.

 ”Rearrange furniture to make rooms bigger and create spaces that allow easy access,” he says.

7. CHANGE OF PLAN

Archicentre’s David Hallett says don’t be too afraid to rearrange the floor plan.

 ”If you have a two-bedroom home, the quickest way to increase the value is rearrange internal space to create a third bedroom or have a design concept prepared to show how they can add a bedroom.”

 The same goes for a study nook or home office. There is usually some “dead” space in a home that can be converted to an office area, such as a built-in wardrobe, cupboard or an area underneath the stairs.

8. FLOORS AND DOORS

“Polishing an existing timber floor or installing a floating timber floor can also dramatically change the appearance of large areas such as living rooms, kitchens and hallway entrances, to create a wow factor at a comparatively low cost,” Hallett says.

 Adding a wall of glass folding doors will also open up a small house to the outside - even if it is just to a lightwell or side walkway. This can enlarge your living space to include the outside area when the doors are open.

9. BETTER BATHROOMS

A shower head over a bath may not be ideal, but it is still better than a bath only with no shower. If you can’t have two bathrooms in a home, at least make one a separate toilet.

10. OUTSIDE AREAS

Provide plenty of functional outside areas such as off-street car parking, a shed, storage areas, play area and, of course, entertaining and gardening.

 WBP’s Greville Pabst says properties with vehicle space, especially in inner-city areas, are highly sought after and add considerable value.

Creating extra parking or a front drive-on area will add tens of thousands of dollars while in most situations it requires little more than removing part of the front fence and the cost of a cross-over permit from the local government authorities.

If there is definitely no space for a car to park, then create an area large enough for a motorbike or bicycles. This will also be an added feature.

(Source: perthnow.com.au)

Possible expansion ahead for the Pilbara

A mining company in the Pilbara region is investigating how practical an independent railway line, to help transport iron ore to Port Hedland, would be.

Atlas Iron has entered a Memorandum of Understanding with QR National to build the railway for themselves and other companies in the East and South-East Pilbara.

Atlas Iron aims to more than triple the output of iron ore from 15 million tonnes per annum to 46 million.

Both companies will research the feasibility of the venture, with results expected to be released by the end of this calendar year, with first haulage marked for as early as 2015.

Under the agreement, Atlas and QR National will share the costs of the study and both will contribute resources as required. Any development proposal would be subject to the approvals of both companies.

The Agreement envisages that Atlas would be a foundation customer of the railway and contemplates Atlas being a junior equity partner in the project.

QR National Executive Vice President Strategy and Business Development, Ken Lewsey said Atlas and QR National have been working informally on the proposal since 2011.

“QR National is delighted to take this work forward to the next step with the signing of this agreement with Atlas Iron,” Mr Lewsey said.

“Atlas is Australia’s most developed iron ore miner that is not hauling on rail. QR National is Australia’s leading provider of heavy-haul rail transport and infrastructure.”

(Source: spionline.com.au)

Australia slashes interest rates to 3.75%

 Australia slashed interest rates by a shock 50 basis points Tuesday to 3.75 percent due to weaker economic conditions and lower inflation, causing a drop in the Aussie dollar but a sharemarket boost.

It was the largest cut since the Reserve Bank of Australia reduced rates by 100 basis points in February 2009 in the wake of the global financial crisis, and came as a surprise to analysts who tipped a 25 basis point fall.

Bank chairman Glenn Stevens said the decision was “based on information received over the past few months that suggests that economic conditions have been somewhat weaker than expected, while inflation has moderated”.

In particular, data showed underlying inflation had declined again, and was a little over 2.0 percent over the latest four quarters, and would likely be lower than earlier forecast over the next few years.

“A reduction of 50 basis points in the cash rate was, in this instance, therefore judged to be necessary in order to deliver the appropriate level of borrowing rates,” Stevens said.

The local currency, which has been at historic highs for the past 18 months, slumped from 104.10 US cents to 103.22 US cents after the announcement. Sydney stocks were up around 0.8 percent.

Treasurer Wayne Swan welcomed the news, describing it as a move small businesses and householders had been “hanging out for”, and urged the big commercial banks to pass the full cut onto their borrowers.

The RBA last slashed its rate in December, and Stevens said the board “judged it desirable that financial conditions now be easier than those which had prevailed” then.

He repeated his view that while growth in the global economy had slowed in late 2011, a deep downturn was not occurring.

“Market sentiment remains skittish, however, and the tasks of putting European banks and sovereigns onto a sound footing for the longer term, and of improving Europe’s growth prospects, remain large,” he said.

“Europe will remain a potential source of adverse shocks for some time yet.”

Australia was dubbed the “Wonder from Down Under” after its mining-fuelled economy dodged recession during the global financial crisis.

But despite its booming resources sector, other parts of the economy are struggling against higher labour and energy costs and the stronger Australian dollar.

Families are saving rather than spending, with retail in a slump and housing construction weak.

Chief economist at the Commonwealth Bank Michael Blythe said the rate cut could lift consumer confidence.

“I think it has provided a circuit breaker for the negative feedback loop of consumer confidence that has been coming through,” he said.

Shane Oliver, chief economist at AMP Capital Investors, said the decision revealed “the RBA got it wrong, now it’s trying to get it right”.

“At last the RBA has moved to get back on track and reverse the de-facto monetary tightening we have seen so far this year thanks to higher bank lending rates, and address the fact that the non-mining economy in Australia is really struggling,” he said.

Australia still has higher rates compared to other nations.

The US Federal Reserve is expected to keep rates near zero until late 2014, while Bank of England policymakers last month voted to keep them at a record low 0.50 percent, where they have stood since March 2009.

With the European economy tipping towards recession, the European Central Bank’s policy-setting governing council voted last month to leave its benchmark interest rate unchanged at the historic low of 1.0 percent.

(Source: google.com)

Port Hedland tops BHP’s priority list

LARGE investors in BHP Billiton are now convinced that expansion of iron ore operations at Port Hedland will be given priority over the company’s other big growth projects, including the Olympic Dam proposal in South Australia.

Those expectations have crystallised in the wake of two days of investor briefings by BHP group executive Alberto Calderon, which stressed the company’s plan to ”sequence” its big projects in a way that retains financial discipline and flexibility.

The BHP board has long been scheduled to make final investment decisions in 2012 on three major growth projects: the Olympic Dam expansion, construction of an outer harbour at Port Hedland, and expansion of the Jansen potash mine in Canada.

That queue of big projects has increasingly concerned investors, who fear that approval of all three would tie up tens of billions of BHP’s funds for the best part of a decade, and dramatically limit the company’s ability to return money to shareholders in the short-term.

Speaking in Sydney yesterday, Mr Calderon stressed to investors that a large chunk of BHP’s capital spend would be out of the way by 2014, and that a sequenced approach to the big projects would allow the company to balance ”short and long-term returns”.

Macquarie analyst Lee Bowers concluded that it was increasingly clear that BHP considered the outer harbour project at Port Hedland to be ”the most pressing project development of the Big 3”.

Construction of a new outer harbour will allow BHP to create an extra 100 million tonnes of export capacity - and potentially more in later stages - for its Pilbara iron ore division.

A range of factors have conspired to make the outer harbour the priority project - not the least being expectations that iron ore prices will begin to decline from their present high levels within the next couple of years.

The Olympic Dam copper, gold and uranium project has long loomed as BHP’s flagship growth project, but it boasts longer horizons for development and financial return than the outer harbour.

Olympic Dam’s investment credentials will be weakened if the Australian government goes ahead with threats to axe two tax breaks for miners that are particularly relevant to the deep and remote nature of the deposit. ”The chances of all three projects receiving investment sanction over the next 12 to 18 months are very low,” Mr Bowers said.

Rio Tinto boss Tom Albanese will address the same group of investors today.

He is expected to confirm recent private comments that an expansion of the Mount Pleasant Coal Mine in New South Wales is unlikely to proceed given the increasingly high cost of doing business in this country.

(Source: brisbanetimes.com.au)

Pilbara house prices $300k higher than Sydney

Housing prices in the Pilbara are continuing to rocket ahead of other regions in Australia, with recent purchases in Newman and Port Hedland averaging $800,000 each.

According to Crawford Realty the average sale times and prices for property in the Pilbara is well ahead of Perth.

AAP reports the average price of $800,000 in Port Hedland and Newman is $300,000 more than the median in Sydney.

Crawford realty said investors from the eastern states were leading sales in the region.

The company said BHP Billiton’s plans to proceed with the Outer Harbour Development and other mining expansions were driving the prices.

Yesterday Queensland mining workers dumped from BMA’s Norwich Park mine were offered a house if they chose a redundancy package.

BHP takes first steps with outer harbour

BHP Billiton this week expects to take a small but crucial step towards its ultimate goal of a massive iron ore outer harbour at Port Hedland when a pre-construction piling program gets under way.

The two-month exercise, which BHP hopes to begin by Friday, will see the installation of three open-ended tubular test piles along the proposed outer harbour jetty off Finucane Island.

Five open-ended tubular steel piles to support survey equipment will also be installed.

The piling program will take place between 1.7km and 31.5km off the Pilbara coast.

The outer harbour is a massive undertaking that analysts expect to cost at least $US10 billion ($9.6 billion). It will comprise eight berths on a 2km wharf, a 4km jetty and a 34km shipping channel.

Two months ago BHP’s board approved $855 million in pre-commitment funding to enable the completion of a feasibility study for the project as well as the ordering of long-lead items.

BHP’s board is expected to sign off on the outer harbour project late this year. It will do so against a headwind of an increasingly subdued global commodities outlook and investor agitation for BHP to return some of its big cash pile rather than invest in massive organic growth projects such as the outer harbour and the Olympic Dam copper-uranium-gold expansion.

(Source: Yahoo!)

RBA points to a rate cut next month

THE Reserve Bank of Australia has kept official interest rates on hold for another month, but has flagged a likely rate cut as early as next month.

The RBA decided at its April board meeting in Melbourne today to keep the cash rate at 4.25 per cent, where it has been since December.

RBA Governor Glenn Stevens acknowledged the pace of economic growth had been slower than expected but said the board would wait until after the release of quarterly inflation data before deciding whether to lower the rate.

“At today’s meeting, the board judged the pace of output growth to be somewhat lower than earlier estimated, but also thought it prudent to see forthcoming key data on prices to reassess its outlook for inflation, before considering a further step to ease monetary policy,” Mr Stevens said in a statement accompanying the decision.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics will release consumer price index (CPI) inflation data for the March quarter on April 24, a week before the RBA’s next board meeting.
Mr Stevens said that, if underlying inflation remained around its current level of 2.5 per cent, the board would have room to cut rates.

“The Board’s view was also that, were demand conditions to weaken materially, the inflation outlook would provide scope for easier monetary policy.”

The RBA cut the cash rate by 25 basis points in November and December, citing concerns over the impact of Europe’s sovereign debt crisis.

However, it has opted to keep rates on hold so far this year, arguing conditions were improving globally while the domestic economy appeared to be at “around trend”.

HSBC Australia chief economist Paul Bloxham said Mr Stevens’ comments indicated the board felt it could afford to wait another month, but was prepared to cut if necessary.

“It’s clear they feel they have a bit of time, but they also have a conditional easing bias, he said.

He said a May rate cut was looking increasingly likely.

“If we see a low enough inflation print, we will also expect the Reserve Bank will cut next month,” he said.

“So a May cut is looking more likely.”

Twelve of the 15 economists surveyed by AAP last week said they expected the RBA to cut the cash rate by 25 basis points in the June quarter.

Meanwhile, the futures market is pricing in a three out of four chance of a rate cut next month.

(Source: perthnow.com.au)

Bringing the East to the Pilbara

The freight distance between struggling manufacturing sectors in the Eastern States and more than $300 billion worth of projects in the West Australian resources pipeline could be cut by 16 hours, with an ambitious plan to connect the WA’s major ports by road and rail.

The PortLink project is still in its feasibility study phase, but if realised would also mean untapped regions of minerals rich Western Australia considered unviable due to their remoteness could become more attractive exploration targets.

WA Regional Development Minister Brendon Grylls today announced a $5 million contribution, topping up the Federal Government’s $2 million input for planning an inland intermodal transport hub in Kalgoorlie-Boulder and a sealed road heading north towards the Pilbara, in the first elements of the project.

“The Commonwealth knows with the changing face of manufacturing that more and more in the Eastern States are going to have to look to the resource expansion of Western Australia as a market and what that market needs is good transport logistics to make it work,” he said.

The road and rail network would run directly from the Great Northern Highway to an intermodal facility at Kalgoorlie and then North to the Pilbara and would shave about 16 hours off the current route, in which goods travel into Perth before being redirected up north.

Phase two of the project would examine the feasibility of linking the existing Esperance/Kalgoorlie-Boulder/Wiluna standard gauge rail into the Mid-West and Pilbara network.

Junior miners in the fledgling Yilgarn and Mid-West iron ore regions of the state, which sit between the established mining regions of the Pilbara and the Goldfields, would have access to multi-user rail facilities, under early long terms visions for the project.

“We’re a bit further away from that,” Mr Grylls said.

“What we know is the resources sector lives or dies on the logistics of getting a natural resource from inland on to a port and into a boat.

“We’ve got more domestic gas project coming online, projects need to get access to water supplies, gas gives them energy supplies, without water and without energy the project can’t go ahead.

“At the moment we are heavily dependent on the bigger companies bringing those large scale projects to fruition. If those infrastructure corridors are in place I think it provides a better opportunity for smaller companies to become bigger companies.”

Phase one planning is expected to begin in the coming weeks and continue at least to the end of 2012.

(Source: smh.com.au)

Cyclone victims made eligible for relief funding

The State Government says North West communities, affected by Tropical Cyclone Lua, have been made eligible for natural disaster relief funding.

Residents and local shires can apply for funds through the joint State Government-Commonwealth relief program.

Pardoo Roadhouse Manager, Janet Robb, woke up to flooded motel rooms, damaged staff quarters and uprooted trees after the category four cyclone battered the community a week ago.

She says she will be first in line for help.

All the motel rooms were just flooded so we’ve had to dry all those rooms out and obviously the trees were down,” Ms Robb said.

“We’ve lost all the patio and roof off the veranda so if I can have some of the money it’ll be very nice.”

The shires of Ashburton, Broome, East Pilbara, Meekatharra and Port Hedland are eligible for the funding which will be distributed by the State Government.

(Source: abc.net.au)