This about sums it up from offshore:
ICBC Standard Bank’s bulks analyst, Melinda Moore, didn’t name anyone in her overnight commentary, but she didn’t have to:
“We were going to ignore the Australian IO pricing debate, but a call for a national enquiry?!? Seriously: enough is enough!” wrote Moore, using double question and exclamation marks even without attempting a single play on words.
“If a company expands by dumping nearly 100mt of sub-economic, highly-indebted tonnes into the market, that is their choice. To then cry foul and ask the industry or worse still, the Australian tax payer to save them from themselves is an utter travesty of economics.
“If they had not added so much tonnage into the market last year, prices would be closer to $US80/t than $US55/t and Australia’s GDP receipts would be at least $13.6bln higher.
“The long-range expansions of lower cost competitors have been well flagged since 2008. The high-cost miner’s strategy was to beat these low-cost/better quality tonnes into the market. They now have only themselves to blame.”
