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Saturday, November 08, 2003

China: Raw Material Impacts I


OK I've got the 'China Impact' safely up on the radar. Anyone with anything interesting to contribute, please forward. Today it's the mining group BHP Billiton:

BHP Billiton, the world's biggest diversified mining group, gave a relatively upbeat outlook for its main commodity markets and said strong demand from China was underpinning volume growth in a number of areas. In its first-quarter results announcement on Wednesday morning, the Melbourne-based group said sales to China's booming economy had grown at an annualised rate of about 50 per cent in the three months to September after rising 126 per cent last year. Chris Lynch, chief financial officer, said Chinese growth was contributing to "very strong demand" for iron ore and coal - a commodity that China recently began importing in large volumes - and to "strong demand" for aluminium and alumina. He said China had also been a factor in the group's decision to bring back its Escondida copper mine in Chile to full production from January, a move that would increase output by 200,000 tonnes a year. The Anglo-Australian group reduced output by as much as 10 per cent over the past two years in a bid to help stem the fall in copper prices.
Source: Financial Times
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