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So predictable. All commodity cycles work this way:

Rio in effect conceded on Friday that the cost of exporting iron ore from Western Australia this year would be about 5 per cent higher than previously expected.

The rising cost was implied when Rio retained its promise to keep unit costs between $US19.50 and $US21 per tonne, but changed its assumption for the value of the Australian dollar this year from an average of US75¢ to US71¢.

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About the author
David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal. He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.